


In the Service of Secrets

by orphan_account



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Affairs, Alternate Universe - Politics, American Politics, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-26
Updated: 2016-08-05
Packaged: 2018-07-26 22:14:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 24,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7592314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>American President Astra Isaacs has a lot of secrets, not the least of which the torrid affair that she's having with the head of her Secret Service detail, Special Agent Alex Danvers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [streepytime](https://archiveofourown.org/users/streepytime/gifts).



The First Gentleman of the United States was, from anyone’s reckoning, a loyal and faithful husband.  As the director of the President’s Secret Service, Agent Alex Danvers could pretty much vouch for that.  He was never seen buggering off with other women.  But he was cold, disengaged, a little imperious with the staff, and if one were feeling uncharitable (Alex usually was), a bit of a prick.  She and Vasquez had taken bets as to when the last time was that he and the President had shared a bed, and the numbers they’d bandied about were… well, not good.

So it wasn’t much of a surprise that the President was moved to quietly seek some release elsewhere.  Astra Isaacs didn’t get to where she was by being a cold fish, after all.  She was known for her passionate speeches and take-no-prisoners debating style and most people correctly assumed that such passion manifested itself behind closed doors in equal measure.  Or at least it would, if given the opportunity.

In short; the President needed to get laid.  So naturally, she did it the way busy women do; they fuck who’s close to them.  


“Sir,” Vasquez’s voice crackled in her earpiece. “Freefall is requesting you.”  

“Can you take care of it?”  She cut through the rear of the lobby and past the checkpoints into the West Wing.  

“Tried, Sir.  She insists it has to be you.  She won’t tell me what she wants.”

“Copy that.”  She strode through the West Wing, wearing her quiet authority as comfortably as if she’d been the head of The President’ Secret Service detail her entire life.

> _ “Madam President! I am responsible for your safety, you cannot go rogue like this again!  Ditching your detail to sneak out for a slice of Shakey’s Pizza is incredibly stupid and dangerous.  And it’s the third time this month that you’ve done this!” _
> 
> _ “What are you going to do about it, Agent Danvers?”  she’d shot back, leaning back against the edge of her desk.  She was mocking, but beneath her thin veneer of cool, her blue eyes blazed. _
> 
> _ Alex didn’t bother taking out her earpiece.  Let her people hear her having it out with the President..  “Maybe I’ll cuff you to your desk next time,” she hissed. _
> 
> _ “Promises, promises, Agent.” _

Her blood was already boiling as she moved down the hall.  Her earpiece crackled again.  “Sir, the Rose Garden is secure,”  Agent Lane’s voice announced.  “We’re ready for Freefall whenever you want to bring her down.”  Alex smiled.  She was lucky.  She had a good team.  Like herself, they’d all come up under Director Henshaw and they knew what they were doing.

“Thank you, Lane.”

Protecting the President of the United States was Job One, and Agent Danvers took it deeply seriously.  Henshaw had nearly given his life to protect President Clinton.  Alex was prepared to do the same but goddamnit, this President wasn’t making it easy for her.  Freefall was her Secret Service nickname because she used to jump out of planes when she belonged to the Airborne, and she seemed to think she was invincible.

> _ Alex’s brow furrowed.  She stepped closer.  “Are you doing this specifically to antagonize me, Madam President?” _
> 
> _ “If I were trying to antagonize you, you’d know.”  And then the President’s surprisingly strong hands grabbed Alex’s lapels and yanked her closer.  “Does it feel like antagonism?”  she asked, softer.   She was looking at Alex’s mouth, her eyes traveling down the front of her dark suit.   _
> 
> _ Alex gripped the President’s waist, her fingers curling tightly through the navy blue fabric of her skirt.  She felt the firm muscles beneath her skin.  “Ma’am,” she warned, fully conscious that her earpiece was still in and she had to choose her words carefully.  “You’d better be sure about what you’re doing, here.” _

Alex didn’t know what the President wanted from her now, so she found herself on edge, spoiling for a fight and somehow more aroused by that prospect than she wanted to admit.  

Senator Miranda Crane breezed past her with an aide scurrying in her wake.  “Agent Danvers,” she said cheerfully.  “Off to give the President some more of your invaluable policy advice?”

Alex snorted and kept walking.  Alex knew she was too mouthy about policy opinions for a Secret Service Agent.  Henshaw always told her that, warned her that whatever she thought about the President’s choice to move troops out of Baghdad or levy fines against the oil industry, she damn well better keep it to herself.  Sometimes she couldn’t help it, though.  And Crane had been there the last time it had happened.  “Off to give the Senate some more of your invaluable hot air, Senator?” she muttered under her breath.  

Crane didn’t respond.  She probably didn’t hear.  Alex marched on, conscious of the bulk of her sidearm resting against her ribcage underneath her jacket.  Had someone set the thermostats too high in the West Wing today?

When she entered the Oval Office, the President looked up at her.  Afternoon light fell in from the window behind her, illuminating her chestnut hair and casting soft gold light on the surface of the ornate desk in front of her.  She smiled, radiant with her sparkling blue eyes and perfect teeth, and for a moment Alex couldn’t think of anything except the last time she stood in this office, about a week ago.  She’d been avoiding it since then, sending Lane or Vasquez to handle whatever it was that Freefall needed.

> _ The President took Alex’s hand, slid it up underneath her skirt and pressed it between her legs.  Alex felt her readiness and became instantly wet.  The President’s eyes flicked over to the earpiece, silently acknowledging it, using the same caution with her words.  “Does it seem like I’m not sure, Agent Danvers?” _
> 
> _ The President of the United States, in front of her, skirt pushed up.  Their eyes locked and unblinking, staring each other down even as Alex’s fingers worked the President’s stiff, hot clit.  How wet she’d been, how badly she’d clearly needed this.  How hot and powerful it had made Alex feel, the pride and triumph of fucking the President against the edge of her desk in the Oval Office, barely breathing, almost silent.  She hadn’t even bothered to take out her earpiece. _

“Agent Danvers.”

“Madam President?”  She stood with her back stiff, hands clasped behind her back.

“Are they ready for me outside?”

_ Is anyone ever ready for this woman? _ Alex thought wryly to herself.  “Yes, ma’am.”

“Good.”

“Is that all you wanted?” 

> _ “Whatever you want, Madam President.”  It was so strange, how they’d gone from arguing to … this…. In a matter of moments.  Her hand up the President’s skirt, stroking her with a kind of angry lust that seemed to ambush her from nowhere.  With Washington and Lincoln and Kennedy watching from the walls.  Sweet Jesus. _
> 
> _ Astra shook, struggled to control her thick breathing, to keep her voice low and even, but her body was stiff and her hips thrusting were against Alex’s fingers.  “I’ll go where I want to go, is that clear?” _
> 
> _ Alex slipped a finger in and watched with satisfaction as Astra shook a little at being penetrated.  “I’m just doing my job,” she replied, smirking. _
> 
> _ “Yes, you are, Agent,” the President whispered, for a moment closing her eyes and letting her head drop back.  “And I appreciate that.” _

The President, still smiling, got up from behind her desk and walked around in front of it, just where she’d been standing a week ago.  Leaned back against it, hands behind her, gripping the edge of it, just as she’d been a week ago.   _ A week ago, when I pushed a finger into her and fucked her until her lip quivered and her whole body trembled.  There, right there. _

“Are you… avoiding me, Agent Danvers?”

Alex schooled her face.  Stoic.  She wasn’t about to give anything away.  It was almost surreal, what had happened.  She was going to continue pretending that she didn’t fuck the President, didn’t lick the taste of Astra off of her fingers while she watched, that she didn’t walk away feeling satisfied despite Astra not having reciprocated.  “Avoiding you?  No, ma’am.  Why would I be?”

“That’s good, Agent.  I just wanted to make sure that we didn’t have any… issues between us after our last meeting here.”

_ Our last meeting?  When I fucked you?  That meeting?   _ “Of course not.”

“Things did get very … tense.”

Alex barely nodded.  “If you say so, ma’am.”

> _ Alex could feel the muscles inside Astra clutching.  She thrilled at the prospect that her entire team was listening to her fuck the president and they had no idea.  She could feel that Astra was close, that she’d stoked her tensions near to the breaking point.  “Madam President, if that’ll be all, they’re waiting for you in the Rose Garden,” she said, her voice as carefully even and calm as she could make it. _
> 
> _ There it was.  Oh, there it was, those little tremors, and the President’s eyes finally closed.  And after a deep breath, with a great deal of care to the tenor of her own voice, she responded, “I’m coming, Agent Danvers.”  _

Atra smirked, and crooked a finger.  “Come closer, please.”

Alex took a step closer.

Astra looked at her with irritation.  “Again, please.”

Alex obliged.  This wasn’t going to happen again, was it?  It couldn’t.  She didn’t even like this woman.  Except that the way she’d looked when she was falling apart under Alex’s touch… she’d liked that.  Too much.

“Agent, I just wanted to …. apologize for the way I behaved toward you.”  She had that stare now, Jesus, that focused stare, that eye-fuck stare.  

“It’s not a problem, ma’am.”

Astra leaned close to Alex, placed her lips next to the ear without the earpiece, so close that Alex could feel the brush of her lips as she whispered barely louder than a breath:  “Just so you know, Agent, I intend to reward your … steadfastness.”  She felt fingers brush up the inside of her thigh as Astra said this, and she bit her lip to control her breathing.  She wanted to push the woman down on that desk and fuck her again, this time properly, pulling out all the stops, a hundred different ways, till they could hear the moaning all the way over in the East Wing.

She felt those manicured fingers slide up the inside of her thigh until they reached where they met, felt them press in and rub through the fabric of her trousers.  She bit her lip again and remained stoic despite feeling the hot flood between her legs, just like before.  “If that’ll be all,” she said evenly, “they’re waiting for you in the Rose Garden.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex tries to work out what the hell just happened.

One of the last things Henshaw had said to Alex before he retired from the Presidential Protection Division was, “You can’t let yourself get emotionally involved with your protectee.”

Being a lesbian, Alex didn’t reckon this was going to be a problem for her.  They hadn’t had a woman president yet.

“That’s not what I mean,” he’d said.  “I mean, you can’t have emotions about them, you can’t have personal feelings about them either way, or you’re compromised.  You can’t like them, love them, hate them, fear them.  Those are all emotional involvements.  You can’t do that because what if you screw up?  What if you fail to protect that person’s life?  You will always wonder whether your emotions clouded your judgment.”

Did this count as emotion, what she was feeling now?  She wasn’t sure.  She admired the woman’s work ethic; a former four star general and decorated Iraq War veteran, and the first woman in the 101st Airborne, she ran a tight ship; up by 5 a.m., in the Oval Office by 6:30.  She was undeniably fearless, a beautiful woman who didn’t need to trade on her beauty to win the highest office in the land.  Alex respected her.

But she was constantly frustrated with the President’s seeming constant disregard for her own safety.  They butted heads frequently over it.  Worse still, from time to time Alex expressed displeasure with the President’s policy decisions despite it not being her place as a Secret Service agent.  They butted heads over that too.  

So, the President also pissed her off frequently.  Personally, and politically.  It had been a trial from day one.  Was that emotion?  Probably.

And now, the tension between them had exploded into lust.  If Alex was in the mood to be honest with herself, she’d felt a little something flutter in her gut when she first shook the President’s hand, back when she was a candidate.  She was pretty sure that wasn’t exactly an emotion.  But it sure as shit was something and she was pretty sure she was compromised.  She sipped at a beer as Vasquez slid into the barstool beside her.

“What’s wrong with you?” she demanded.

Alex shrugged.  “I think I had sex with someone I shouldn’t have.”

Vasquez nodded.  “Haven’t we all.”  She flagged down the bartender and ordered a jack and coke.  “How the hell did you even find time to have sex with someone you shouldn’t have?”  She paused, looking slightly alarmed.  “Not someone on the team?”

Alex shook her head.  “No.”

“C’mon, spill.”

“Rather not.”

Vasquez frowned.  But they’d worked together in the Service for five years and their friendship stretched all the way back to West Point, when they were the only two dykes in their class; she knew if Alex decided she didn’t want to share something, it might as well be a state secret.

“Are you going to do it again?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you want to?”

“I don’t know.  Kind of.  It was… hot.”

“Usually is when it’s a bad idea.”

“But I don’t even like her.”

“Even better.”

“And she’s married.”

“The trifecta!”  Vasquez hooted.  “Forbidden fruit, of course it’s hot!  Christ, you’re dumb.”

“You’re not helping.  I don’t keep you on the payroll for you to encourage my vices.”

“You keep me on the payroll because I’m the best.  The encouragement of your vices is a value-added benefit.”

  
  


*****

  
  


And that was what echoed in her mind as she found herself sitting here in the back of the President’s limousine, on the way to give a speech at Antietam on the anniversary of the end of the Civil War.  With the President’s husband, unsurprisingly, nowhere to be found.

“Ma’am, may I ask why the First Gentleman is not joining us today?”

She sighed.  “The Civil War makes him nervous.”

“Ma’am?”

“His ancestors were slaveholders.  It makes him uncomfortable.”  

Alex didn’t know what to think about that.  Actually, she did.  And instead of keeping her mouth shut, she pushed forward.  “With all due respect, ma’am, he knew what he signed up for, being married to the President.  You shouldn’t be giving him a pass on appearing with you at public events just because of ancestral guilt.”

The President’s eyes narrowed.  “Agent, I’m sorry, are you also a marriage counselor?  I don’t recall asking for your opinion.”

Alex felt her nostrils flare.  She clenched her jaw and bit back every possible response, in favor of, “Of course not.  Sorry, Madam President.”  She sat in smoldering quiet for a few moments as the vehicle purred onto the Beltway.

“You,” Astra continued quietly, but with simmering anger in her voice, “do not get to tell me how to conduct any of my business, Agent.  Are we clear?”

Alex’s heartbeat picked up a little. “Of course, ma’am.”

“Not that I don’t appreciate your concern.”  Her voice dripped sarcasm, and yet… The pulse on her neck was visibly hammering, her gaze boring into Alex’s with something more complicated than just anger.

“Ma’am?”   _ Why am I not fired?   _ Alex’s mind raced.   _ She should have fired me half a dozen times already.  Why? _

And then Astra reached out a smooth hand and stroked Alex’s cheek.  Once, lightly.  Her face was wry, and for a moment a little wistful.  As if reading Alex’s mind, she said softly, “You’re pretty ballsy, Agent.  It’s … unusual.”

Despite herself, when those soft fingers brushed over her cheek, Alex felt her eyes flutter closed for just a moment.  Prickly warmth washed over her skin.  That was it.  She was toast.  

That brief moment of weakness didn’t escape the President’s notice.  Alex opened her eyes and found Freefall looking pleased.  “I believe I owe you something, Agent.”  Her fingers traveled down Alex’s jaw, down her neck, tracing along the edge of her starched collar.

Alex swallowed and tried to steady her voice.  “You don’t owe me anything.”  

The highway slid by, silent outside the thick wall of bulletproof glass.  She was conscious, as ever, of the earpiece in her ear and the intermittent mutterings of the other team members.  Schott was telling another bad joke.  Astra’s fingers brushed down the row of buttons on the front of Alex’s shirt, stopping between her breasts.  “I think I do.”

Alex bit her lip.  She couldn’t say what she wanted to.  She just watched dumbly, trying to not to breathe too loudly, as the President’s fingers found her nipple through the fabric of her shirt and bra.  She felt it stiffen against her probing touches, standing up begging to be tugged again, again, please god, again.  She gripped the leather seat and tried not to make a sound.  She managed to find the wherewithal to point to her earpiece with a warning look.

Freefall’s only response was an evil little smirk and a shrug.  “It’s a long ride to Antietam, Agent, get comfortable.”

Alex closed her eyes and leaned back as the president’s hands found their way into her dark trousers, into her wet, aching pussy.  She gritted her teeth and gave herself up to the raw fact of her desire, and tried her best to be quiet.

> _ Basic had been hard.  Basic had changed her.  Basic had taken the broken party girl who’d lost her father too early, and turned her into the warrior, the Special Agent.  She’d taken the unforgiving structure of the Army and cleaved to it.  Rules and procedure and rank and respect filled the broken spaces between her bones.  Alex Danvers became everything she could be; push-ups in the mud among a squad of men and women replaced loneliness, her oaths to lay her life down for her brothers and sisters in arms replaced the lack of control she’d had over Jeremiah being taken from her.  Marksmanship replaced personal pain.  Orders and chain of command replaced lost wandering.  Honor and strength replaced intimacy.  It was a different kind of intimacy, she’d decided.  That was all. _

The President’s touch was intuitive; she could sense when her fingers had struck something golden, could linger in it until Alex was holding her breath, silently rocking her hips.  Alex would sometimes open her eyes and turn to the side, see those eyes staring back at her, those eyes with their strands of pale and dark blue, those cheeks flushed with lust.   _ What rules, what rank, what respect? _ Alex wondered.  _ This is the old me,  _ she thought,  _ the broken me.  But oh, God…  _  And then the thought was wiped away as the President’s fingers stroked her in just the right way, sending a new wave of heat and craving through her, leaving her shaking and wanting to be finished off.

An hour later, they were emerging from the limousine at Antietam.  Alex had forgotten how to breathe, her lip was bleeding, and she was walking funny.  The President was relaxed and in good spirits despite the solemn occasion.    

Alex knew then she was well and truly fucked.


	3. Chapter 3

The first time it had happened, in the Oval Office, Alex had told herself it was a fluke. Almost convinced herself she’d imagined it.

The second time, in the limousine, she’d decided to write it off.  The President was merely returning the favor that Alex had given her in the Oval Office.  They were even.  Square.  There was no way that it was possibly going to happen again.  

But quickly enough, it became something approaching habit. Frequent enough that they got good at it.  Pretty much hot, fast, and almost always standing up. Once in the cloakroom in the Senate building.  Once against the back of a locked door of an empty office in the East Wing.  Twice more in the limousine, one of those times with Freefall straddling her lap, Alex’s thumb resting against her clit, the President raking her fingers through Alex’s hair with wanton disregard for how it would look when she was through.  Alex liked that memory in particular.  

There was no kissing, ever.  Alex didn’t pretend that it was about the President not wanting to ruin her makeup.  This just wasn't that kind of thing.  It was just raw, hot, silent sex.  But they got to know each other’s quirks, kinks, preferences.  Alex knew that the President balled up her fists and didn't touch her at all when she was getting close.  The President knew that Alex liked to feel sharp fingernails digging into the back of her neck when she was about to come.  

They did it twice more in the Oval Office, late in the evening.  One time, Alex had her, skirt pushed up, bent over that Presidential desk, pounding her from behind with her fingers.  She relished watching the most powerful woman in the world going weak-kneed under her hands.  Alex felt herself getting hooked on that.  She knew it was bad news.  

The other time in the Oval Office, Astra had summoned her behind the desk, where she sat in her large, comfortable Presidential chair.  Drawn her close.  Unzipped Alex’s trousers and hiked her pants down, just enough.  Guided Alex’s hips to her mouth.  Alex gripped the back of the chair and tried to remain standing as the leader of the free world did something with her tongue that Alex wasn't sure she had felt before, and made her come so hard it was difficult not to make sound, so she just doubled over, nearly collapsing into the President’s lap.

She particularly liked that memory too.

The president still ditched her detail from time to time and went rogue.  Alex couldn't figure out how.  But it almost felt like foreplay after a little while because inevitably Alex would go and retrieve her, they'd argue a little about it, and end up with their hands in each other's pants, against some wall, or leaning against some coats in a cloakroom, or in the back of the limo on the way back from whatever pizza place or museum where she’d found her runaway head of state.

Once, Vasquez nearly caught them.  Alex had emerged from an East Wing cloakroom, breathless, flushed and not having had a chance to straighten her hair.

“Danvers!” she exclaimed.  “You look like who did it and ran, are you feeling okay?”

Alex froze.  Astra was behind her, on the other side of that cloakroom door.  Vasquez better not decide she needed to look in there, or she’d put everything together in an instant.

“Just, uh, working too hard,” she said after the briefest terrified pause.

“Obviously.  You need to take some time off.”

“Can’t.”

“At least meet me for drinks later, then?”

Alex nodded.  “Now get to your post, Agent.”

Vasquez nodded and strode quickly on.

  
  
  


****

  
  


Alex did her best to keep her distance from Freefall, persisting in maintaining the ritual of muttering to herself after every encounter that it was a terrible idea and she had to stop.  If they were caught, after all, it would be the end of her career in Secret Service.  She’d be lucky to get work as a mall cop.  But she was somehow comforted by the fact that it was just as risky for Astra:  a married, allegedly heterosexual president having a torrid lesbian affair with the head of her Secret Service detail.  It would be the end of her presidency, if not in legal fact, then surely in legitimacy.  Maybe the risk was what made it exciting.  Alex didn’t even know anymore.

All she knew was every time she tried to put distance, one way or another, Freefall would pull her back.  Sometimes she’d ditch her detail.  But most times, she’d send for her.  Alex knew when she was looking for sex, too.  Lane or one of the others on the team would mumble into their earpiece:  “Freefall is looking for you, sir.  Won’t tell us why.”

And she’d walk there, with her blood boiling, not sure if she got off on the President’s seeming addiction to what they were doing, or felt taken for granted, like some intern with a stained dress who was likely to bring the President down if she opened her mouth to the wrong person.

  
  


******

  
  


Alex didn’t always walk point everywhere that Freefall went, but it was the State of the Union address, coming on the heels of what was a very tense year for President Isaacs, full of ecological disasters, terrorism and racial unrest.  She didn’t have any reason to be complacent and assume that the simple act of getting her from the White House to the Capitol Building was to be treated lightly.  Crazies liked to do things around high profile events.  So, she stocked the escort team with her favorites, and personally walked the President into the House chamber herself.

“This is really unnecessary, Agent Danvers,” Astra grumbled as Alex walked her to the podium.

“I believe that's my decision, madam president,” Alex answered coolly.  “Just let me do my job.”

“You always do,” Astra replied quietly, and there was that note beneath the snark, the one Alex had come to recognize.  The note that reverberated with the weight of each one of their illicit encounters.

Alex took her place and monitored the back and forth of her staff as they checked in, confirmed locations and, once everything was in place, made light jokes amongst themselves.  

“I bet she has a trapdoor on the dais.”

“Five bucks says she slips out and shakes us after the speech.”

“Ten.”

“Done.”

“That's it, isn't it, sir?  She's got a trapdoor.”

Alex rolled her eyes.  “Can't tell you, Lane, you don't have the clearance.”

 

> _ Alex’s memories of University of Virginia and the attempt on Freefall’s life were still fresh, though they were almost two years old. _
> 
> _ “Sir, it may be nothing but I’m watching that upper deck.  Thought I saw light glinting off of something.  But then it went away” _
> 
> _ It was the final two weeks of the presidential campaign, and the Congress had already dug its heels in, anticipating Astra Isaac’s election, already got to the business of stoking rage in their districts over the incoming president’s radical gun control proposals.  They couldn’t afford to be casual. _
> 
> _ Alex scanned the upper deck of the auditorium they were in, a university where Astra was appealing to young voters.  Alex would never have imagined college kids in flannels and man-buns turning out in such numbers for a general, but she couldn’t deny the force of the woman’s personality. _
> 
> _ She saw what Lane was talking about.  A brief glint of light.  About  fifty feet to the right of what would be right behind the basket.  She’d placed two men up there.  “Olson, Schott, get over there and check it out.”  It was too shadowed, she couldn’t see clearly whether there was a shape up there. _
> 
> _ She saw them move into position.  “There’s someone,” Olson reported in low tones as the two of them moved toward where that glint of light had happened. _
> 
> _ Alex’s hairs stood up on the back of her neck.   _
> 
> _ She saw Astra’s eyes dart up to the balcony. _
> 
> _ “We’ve got it covered ma’am,” she assured her.  Astra appeared skeptical. _
> 
> _ “Armed,” Schott whispered a moment later.  “Sir–” _
> 
> _ “Take him down, take him down!”  Alex hissed into her earpiece. _
> 
> _ As she was saying this, a shot rang out, and then another, within split seconds of one another.  The auditorium erupted.  People started running toward the exits.  It took Alex a moment to realize that while she had intended to tackle the candidate to the ground and protect her, place herself between the candidate and whatever projectile might be hurtling toward her, that the candidate had tackled her instead. _
> 
> _ Alex glared at her, and flipped them over.  “That’s not how this works, ma’am.  _ **_I’m_ ** _ supposed to protect  _ **_you_ ** _.”  She peered past the podium.  It appeared that Schott and Olson had neutralized the shooter but that didn’t mean there weren’t others.  “Lane, Vasquez, take teams one and and two, secure the place, I’m going to get Freefall out of here.” _
> 
> _ The general seemed strangely unruffled.  Alex didn’t know whether to be frustrated or impressed. _

 

Alex wasn’t supposed to say who she’d voted for, but she’d voted for this woman.  It wasn’t just the military background.  It wasn’t just the issues, though she agreed on maybe a little more than half of them.  It was because when Alex looked at her, she saw courage.  And that was what America needed.  Someone with courage.  Someone to do the hard things.  The fact that she was a headache to protect was unfortunately part of the bargain.

> _ “But he called me a liar!  He threw something!” _
> 
> _ “I understand that, ma’am, but you cannot pursue and subdue him, that’s our job.” _
> 
>  

The State of the Union speech was one of the best Alex had heard.  The President was full of fire, and hope, and she spoke about needing to protect the vulnerable, to make America truly a country welcoming to everyone.  She spoke passionately about the gun measures she was pushing to her mostly opposition-party Congress.  She spoke movingly about the need for unity and and then, instead offering platitudes, offered solutions.  

“I don’t have children of my own,” she said at one point, “as America is well aware.  I’m unable to, due to injuries I sustained, protecting this country.  And know that I still protect it, with the fierceness that any mother protects her child.”

> _ Alex had found Astra in the Air and Space Museum one day, on one of her rogue occasions, dressed down, in a baseball cap and thick-rimmed Buddy Holly glasses, telling a group of small children about the history of the vintage WW2 bombers hanging above them.  The children were hanging on every word.  Incredibly, it didn’t seem that they even knew who she was.  Alex almost hated to pull her away.  But she had to. _

 

Alex listened to her talk about national security, half of which she disagreed with.  But she was nonetheless moved.  She remembered why she voted for her.  She remembered that she was honored to protect her.  And when the speech was over, she escorted her from the chamber proudly.  The President was incandescent.  There was a kind of fire that you needed to get up and lead the nation and, indeed, the world, and the President's entire bearing and face and form was crackling with it after impassioned speeches like this one.  Alex had been aware of it in the previous President too, but it didn't quite stir her heart like it did now, as she escorted Astra, Freefall, her President, through the halls of Congress.  


“Agent, a moment, please?  I need the washroom.”

“Of course.”

They stopped off at the Congressional women’s washroom, the one reserved for female members.  Alex found herself pulled into a stall, found the President silently pressing her against the brushed steel door, fumbling at the fastenings on Alex’s trousers while hastily pushing her own skirt up.  Alex found her skin shivering with that prickly warmth, succumbing to what had become routine for them.  When she slid her right hand in, she found the President wet, ready, soaked through her lacy underwear.  Alex’s body responded on instinct, in sympathy, and the flesh between her legs became hot, swollen.  It was happening again.  She was caught, consumed in Astra's fire.  


She loved the way Astra’s eyes would bore into her, the way her jaw would clench.  One of these days, Alex thought, she wanted know what it  _ sounded _ like to fuck her, find out whether the moans she made matched the ones in her imagination.  She would settle now for the feel of it, of her fingers sliding through the wet folds of the President’s cunt, rubbing back and forth over the President’s stiff clit, the President’s fingers racing inside her in ways that nearly made her lose her balance and left her all too reliant on the wall behind her back to remain standing.  Yes, she loved it.

And yet.

And yet.

There was no prelude.  No flirtation.  No foreplay.  Just presumption.  Presumption that Alex was hers whenever she wanted it, wherever she wanted it.  The balance of the battle that had been going on silently in her head for weeks and weeks now was beginning to tip.  A cloakroom, a limousine, the Oval Office, those places were one thing.  But for Christ’s sake, a public bathroom?  Alex reckoned she didn’t have much self respect at this point, if she was fucking her protectee, but damnit.  She had more than that.  The disappointed voice in her head wasn't her father's, but its cadences echoed his.  _You have more self-respect than this._  


She stopped.  With a mix of shame, anger and reluctance, she withdrew her fingers from between the President’s legs, and plucked the President’s hand out of her own pants.  Her aching flesh instantly felt the absence of Astra’s touch.  She was going to have to take care of herself later, there was no doubt.  But she had to draw a line.  And the line was here.  “Ma’am,” she said evenly, sternly.  “They’re waiting for us.  We need to move this along.”

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex and Astra hash some things out via friendly competition.

Some people drank when things were too much for them.  Some smoked.  Some ate too much.  Some overdid it at the gym.  And Alex sometimes did those things.  But those weren’t her favorite coping methods.  Her favorite was battery-powered.

She lay in bed that night, after the State of the Union, naked from the waist down, legs splayed, drowning all of her other feelings in repeated bursts of red-hot orgasm delivered at the end of a small, brutally efficient bullet vibrator.  She let loose weeks of pent-up moans, of raspy panting, whimpered cursing.  It felt good to let go.   She fucked herself again and again, until the bedsheets were soaked, until she could feel the vibrator overheating against her clit, until she was numb at the memory of Astra’s eyes ( _ when had she started thinking of her as Astra? _ ) looking confused and surprised at the way Alex had pulled the plug on their bathroom encounter.  

_ You don’t need, this, Alex,  _ she told herself.  _  You don’t need the headache.  You don’t need the disrespect.  You don’t need to march your career, Lewinsky-like, over the edge of a five hundred foot cliff.  You don’t need  _ **_her_ ** _. _

She didn’t need it.  But she liked it too much.  As soon as she heard that Freefall had gone rogue, that heat would begin blooming, tickling at the base of her spine.  She knew she’d go find her, then argue with her, then fuck her.

A part of her mind speculated that, had they met while they were both in the military, they’d have enjoyed being on the front lines together.  That they’d have been comrades and friends and maybe more.  Not in the 101st Airborne, though.  Alex was a little afraid of heights.

She fired up the bullet again, and drowned that thought in another blast of endorphins before falling asleep.

  
  


***************

  
  


On Alex’s days off,  Vasquez was usually team lead.  Though Alex trusted her, she still made a habit of swinging by the White House, walking the grounds, informally chatting with the team, and stealing a surreptitious look or two at the President if she could manage it.  She would forego her usual dark suits in favor of relaxed jeans and tee shirts or her West Point sweatshirts, to make it clear that she was not on duty. She was merely making her presence felt.

She passed Olson near the front lobby.  “Hey, where’s Freefall?”

He nodded out in the general direction of “out back.”  “Having a pickup game with some of her staffers.”

Alex had never bothered to swing by the President’s basketball games.  Today she decided that would change.  Alex Danvers been West Point’s famously aggressive point guard, and some restless competitiveness was suddenly rattling around in her chest.  People talked about how Freefall won a lot, but Alex suspected that maybe her staff was just being deferential.  She couldn’t actually be that good, could she?

The answer came soon enough.  Alex could see, even from the distance as she was jogging out to the White House basketball court, President Astra Isaacs running rings around her staff.  She was fast on her feet, had a bag of deft and confusing dribbling tricks, and an uncanny talent for sinking a three-pointer.  That vague competitiveness went from rattling in Alex’s chest to straight-up banging around in there like sneakers in the dryer.

She jogged up to the edge of the tree-lined court and watched for a moment.  The staffers were decent players, some of them, but Alex couldn’t help noticing that they clearly hesitated to invade the President’s space when trying to guard her.  Alex figured that wouldn’t be an issue if she stepped onto that court.  She stood watching Astra, in her basketball gear, hair tied back in an unfussy ponytail.  She stood watching the powerful grace of those arms and legs, watching the muscles flexing as she moved.  God, those shoulders.  God, she wasn’t even breaking a sweat.

_ Get it together, Danvers. _

After a few minutes, Astra’s eyes found her.  “Agent Danvers.  Isn’t it your day off?”

“Yeah, but I usually make an appearance anyhow.”  She sauntered onto the court.  “So the rumors are true, Madam President; you do have some skills.”

Astra’s eyes flashed a little.  “I was the Army team’s number one power forward.”

Alex stepped a little closer.  “When would that have been, ma’am?  About 1985?”

The staffers standing around the court blanched a little.  Alex was trash talking and they knew it.  Astra chuckled soundlessly.  “You’ve got a lot of lip on you for a short woman, Agent.”

Alex grinned and escalated things further and pointed to her sweatshirt.  “Well, I was point guard at West Point’s team all four years.”  

Astra dribbled the ball a couple of times.  “Let’s see what you’ve got.  First to seven?”

Alex nodded.  The staffers cleared the court, exchanging uncertain, uneasy glances.  Alex got the ball from Astra easily, slipped around her and sank an easy lay-up. “Come on ma’am, don’t take it easy on me,” she scolded.

Astra didn’t.  “I underestimated you, Agent,” she answered cheerfully.  “I won’t be doing that again.”  

Alex dribbled the ball and pressed forward.  Astra moved into her space, her body so close Alex could feel the heat coming from her skin.  She tried to move left, and Astra was there.  She tried to dodge right, and Astra was there.  “Keep hanging on me like that, ma’am, and people are gonna start thinking you’re sweating me.”

Forward wasn’t happening.  Astra was on her like white on rice.  And then somehow, the ball was out of her hands and Astra sank a shot from the free-throw line.  “You’re the one sweating, Agent,” she observed.

Alex swore under her breath and pulled off her sweatshirt, revealing the snug tee-shirt she wore underneath.  It was true.  She was already a little sweaty.  And Astra was eerily cool.  It was a little weird, actually.  But Alex moved past that and was already thinking how to play things next.  “Yeah, but that’s how your mom likes me.”

Alex heard a few hushed gasps from the staffers.  Astra chuckled again, and streaked down the past Alex’s left.  She really was fast.  But this time, Alex moved down to the net and jumped up, blocking her shot.  Astra caught the rebound and tried again, but Alex jumped.  They struck each other, for a moment chest to chest, and Alex caught the ball.  She sank it with a whoosh.

“Nothing but net,” she said with satisfaction.  “You’re not even ready for me, Madam President.”

Alex went in for a press but found Astra hunkered down and in her face.  Softly enough that none of the staffers could hear, she murmured in Alex’s ear, “You have no idea how ready I am right now, Agent.”

Alex felt herself twitch at that.  The thought of the President’s readiness dissolved her focus for just long enough for the ball to leave her hands and the President to sink another basket from right where they stood.  

They played to a standoff, tied at six, out of breath and grinning savagely at each other.  On this court, they weren’t Special Agent Danvers and Freefall; they were just two of the best amateur ballers in town, going toe to toe.  Twice, Alex was knocked to the ground blocking a shot.  But she got back up.

They stood face to face.  Alex held the ball.  They stared into each other’s eyes.  “We can call it right now, you know,” Astra offered, knowing full well Alex would never do it.  “We can call it it a tie and call it a day, what do you say, Danvers?”

Alex hadn’t worked this hard in a pickup game in a long time.  She glanced over her shoulder at the two agents watching the game.  She couldn’t back down.  She had to play this down to the hilt.  She’d invested more sweat in this than she expected.  “Not a chance,” she laughed, and sprinted down the right side of the court towards the net, dribbling fast and low, from one hand to the other.  Astra managed to steal the ball but Alex wouldn’t let her move forward.  Shoulder to shoulder, she pressed Astra back and managed to steal the ball again.  She knew that Astra would be looking to block her from moving forward, so she darted back and made a hail Mary throw from the free-throw line.  

She watched the ball soar through the air and smack the backboard, drop down, and roll around the rim for a moment… and then bounce forward and into Astra’s waiting hands.  Alex’s mouth dropped for a moment as she watched the President of the United States catch it, and then leap into the air to an almost impossible height, and slam it into the hoop with such force that Alex half expected the backboard to shatter.   _ So much for “girls can’t dunk,” _ she thought with grudging admiration as Astra’s sneakers made contact with the court again.

“Got another one in you, Agent?  Or did I spank you too hard?”  Astra ribbed, strutting over with the ball under her arm.  

Alex smiled and shook her head.  “Next time. I need to wash up, I’ve got somewhere to be.”

“You sure I can’t school you some more?”  Astra prodded.

Alex bit back her competitive instincts.  She knew if she played again she’d go too hard, and that wasn’t the point of this.  But she’d made it clear that she was someone to be reckoned with.  That was enough for her, for now.  She felt as if she’d gotten something out.  “Next time,” she repeated, and walked off toward the White House locker rooms.

  
  


******

  
  


She stood underneath the shower spray, head dropped forward, letting the hot water pour down her shoulders and back.  Her hair stuck in wet strings to her face, and she lolled her head first left, then right, stretching the muscles in her neck.  She felt the sweat washing from her skin and sighed heavily.  It was more than sweat, washing away.

The door to the shower stall opened.  Alex looked up.  Standing in front of her, fully naked, was the President.  

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Astra said casually, letting her eyes roam the length of Alex’s dripping body.  “I didn’t realize this shower was taken.”

Alex stopped breathing.  Astra’s physique exceeded the wildest expectations of Alex’s fantasies about what lay beneath the conservative suits.  She’d never lost her army training, Alex supposed.  She’d been told the President could do over a hundred push-ups.  Looking at her now, Alex believed it.  

Astra interpreted Alex’s dumbstruck silence as an invitation.  She slipped into the tiny stall, closing the door quietly behind her.  In the next heartbeat, Alex found herself pressed against the cool tile, feeling Astra’s wet skin slipping against hers.  “I was impressed with you, Agent,” she whispered into Alex’s ear, sliding her thigh in between Alex’s to push them apart. 

“Likewise, I’m sure,”  Alex whispered back.  “Listen, I can’t just–”

Astra sank her teeth into Alex’s collarbone, drawing a gasp.  “Stop, Agent,” she ordered firmly.

Alex’s bones felt warm and weak.  “Ma’am…”  She floundered for a moment.  “You can’t just have it whenever you–” 

Astra’s finger rested against Alex’s lips.  “Ssh.  I know.  I know that.  I never let you call the picks.  I never let this be yours as much as mine,” she whispered.  

They still had to be quiet.  Anyone could come through here and hear them.

“So,” Astra continued softly, “we don’t have much time, but I’m going to make it up to you.”

Alex leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes as Astra sank down to her knees on the shower floor.  Droplets pinpricked at her face and collarbones, beat gently at her breasts, and ran in rivulets over her nipples and down her stomach.  Water streamed down the back of Astra’s head and back and then trailed in circles down the drain.  And Astra’s mouth was urging Alex open, and Alex surrendered.  She let her knees give a little, lowered herself, opened herself.  Wound her fingers into Astra’s wet hair and held on, giving her cunt over to the soft current of licking and sucking that comprised Astra’s “apology.”  Astra had only done this once before, and it had been fast, urgent, her tongue quicker than Alex could believe was humanly possible.  She was still efficient now, but a little less hurried.  Alex had time to feel her mouth, working with care, had time to hear the hammer of her own pulse in her ears, over the beating of the shower water.

This was the first time anything had happened between them when Alex didn’t have her earpiece in.  So, she let herself sigh a little, let herself enjoy the time Astra was taking.  She wasn’t sure, but she swore she felt Astra shiver a little at the sound of her sigh.  She kept half an ear out.  There was no-one else in there.

“Let me hear you,” she whispered as she moved against the warmth of Astra’s mouth.  “Just once.  There’s no-one here.”

Astra rewarded her with the quietest of moans. Alex shivered too.  That one soft, barely audible moan was going to haunt her dreams.  She knew it.

And then they heard the locker room door open, and a set of footsteps.  Astra paused.  Alex caught her breath.  The footsteps moved about, opened a locker, slammed it shut.  A door banged at the other end of the rows of shower stalls.  They waited silently until the sound of the water in the other stall came on.  Astra looked up at her, smirking.  Alex bit her lip, silently laughing a bitter little laugh, and closed her eyes.  Back to silence.  That one sigh, that one moan, was all they were going to get for now.  Back to fucking silently.  It was just what they did.

Alex gripped Astra’s shoulders when she finished, struggling not to collapse.  Astra reached up and held Alex, supported her with strong hands around her waist.  The sweet, breathless death of orgasm slayed more sweetly when delivered by someone else’s hand.  Or, in this case, mouth.  It obliterated every thought she had in her head, every objection, every hesitation.

She wanted more.

Astra stood, pressed her wet, muscled frame against Alex’s.  “I hope you forgive my selfish presumptions, Agent,” she whispered into her ear.  She reached down ran her fingers over Alex’s swollen clit, slipped a finger into her, devoured the sight of Alex shuddering and closing her eyes.  She held the pressure there for a few seconds, seeming to catch them both in a moment of raw need.  Alex absorbed the way Astra looked at her; saw hunger, saw struggle, saw an ache that ran deeper than Alex had seen in her before.  Had she just never noticed it?

Alex nearly wept at the absence of that pressure when Astra took her hand away.  She watched as Astra slipped out of the door, grabbing her towel from the hook on the outside of the stall.  “I’m not going to ask anymore,” Astra said softly.  “The ball is in your court now.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Astra and Alex find a way to communicate.

Alex kept her distance for a few days.  She needed to think about everything.  The game.  The shower.  The words Astra had whispered to her as she left.  Good on her promise, Astra did not send for her or pull a Houdini act.

Over beers one evening, Vasquez asked her, “So, you still having sex with that someone you shouldn’t?”

Alex laughed out loud.  “I don’t know how to answer that.”

“Well, did you do it again?”

“Oh, yeah.  And again, and again, and …” 

Vasquez looked impressed. “And?”

Alex pulled at her pint of bitter and finally answered.  “And then she kind of started thinking she could just order up a booty call whenever.”

“And that’s bad because?”

“It’s bad because … well come on, you ever feel like someone just took you for granted?”

Vasquez crushed a couple of peanut shells in her  hand and popped the nuts in her mouth with a sly grin.  “If you’re tired of it, do you think she’d be interested in taking me for granted? It’s been a little while.”

“Come on, I’m serious.”

“So am I.” 

Alex sighed.  “Yeah well… I don't know, now all of a sudden she's like, the ball is in your court.  She's so hard to read… I know she's into me, obviously, but I don’t know if she respects me.”

Vasquez munched away on the peanuts for a few minutes before washing it down with some stout.  “Look, it’s hot with her, right?”

Alex nodded. “Yeah.  Very.”

“So, the only reason you care about whether she respects you is… if you care.”  She looked at her significantly.  “Do you care, Danvers?”

Alex couldn’t answer.  Don’t get emotionally involved, Henshaw had warned her.  Boy, had she screwed the pooch on that one.

  
  


*************

  
  


She made her way to the Oval Office the next day.  Her visit was under the pretense of discussing the security for the approaching state dinner.  When she entered, and closed the door behind her, Astra stood up from behind her desk and gave the brilliant smile that Alex had seen a thousand times before they’d ever even met.  “Agent Danvers.  I’m glad you stopped by.  The state dinner, is that what we’re discussing?”

Alex fiddled with her earpiece. Goddamn earpiece.  How was she supposed to communicate anything with this goddamn thing in?  “Yes, that’s the main order of business.”

Astra gestured to the chairs in front of the desk.  “Please, sit down.”

Alex chewed at her lip as she moved to sit in the chair. 

“How are you today, Agent?”

“Fine, thanks,”  Alex answered, “and you?  The First Gentleman, everyone else?”

Astra nodded, clearly wondering what was on the other side of this small talk.  “Yes, we’re well, thank you.  Speaker Grant is a pain in my ass, but what else is new?”

Cat Grant, Speaker of the House, was a consummate showman and a frequent thorn in the President’s side.  Alex rather liked her, actually.  She cast a quick glance around the desktop.  Her eyes settled on a notepad emblazoned with the Presidential Seal.  She grabbed it, and a pen.  “I’ve actually found her pretty pleasant on the few occasions I’ve met her.”  And then she scribbled on the pad:

_ I don’t want to stop doing what we’ve been doing….  _

Astra’s clear eyes absorbed the words.  

Alex kept writing.

_ I’m not under any illusions that this is a romantic relationship.   _

“Don’t be fooled by her charming exterior,”  Astra answered haltingly as Alex continued writing.  “She’s a dramatic asshole.”

Alex smiled faintly at that, but then continued writing:

_ But I need to know that you respect me. _

Astra took the pad from her and began scratching out a reply. 

“Well, it’s just politics, right?”  Alex rambled as Astra wrote.  “I guess you need both style and substance to get anything done.”

Astra pushed the pad back across the desk.  In her surprisingly messy hand, it read:

_ Don’t worry.  I’m not 25 anymore.  I can’t bring myself to fuck someone I don’t respect.   _

Alex smiled a little at that.  

“Well, Agent, enough small talk.  You know I like to delegate but I also like to know what’s going on.  So, tell me how you’re planning to cover the room?”

The furious scratching of Alex’s pen continued for a moment and then she pushed the pad back to Astra.  It said:

_ The feeling is mutual.  The risk of this does concern me though.  What about your husband? _

She took a breath and began to explain her plan for the state dinner, how many teams would be covering the room and how many specifically on her, while the scratching of Astra’s hasty writing went on beneath her speaking.  She paused as Astra passed the pad back to her.

_ He’s my problem, not yours.   _

Alex’s mouth went on autopilot as she ran down the standard procedures for security checks on all the entering guests as she wrote back:

_ Still surprises me.  You’re not known for recklessness. _

Astra smiled.  “Well, I trust your teams, but I want to be sure there are contingencies in place for everything,” she said lightly as she wrote and passed it back.  “I assume you’re already coordinating with the Russian ambassador’s security team?”

_ Never had chemistry like this with someone before. _

Alex couldn’t argue with that.  The raw sexual attraction between them was strong and undeniable.  

“Of course.  Mr. Galerkin’s people have been surprisingly cooperative for Russians.”  She seized the pad and wrote back:   _ Me neither.  But this whole thing feels dangerous.   _

Alex babbled some more while she watched Astra scribbling hastily:   _ I meant it when I said this was up to you.   _

“Agent, mind your tongue, my own family’s heritage is from Russia,” she warned with a tone of breezy humor, passing the pad back to her.  They really had no further excuse to continue this conversation.

“Sorry, ma’am.   _ Ya ne khotela nikogo obidet. _ '” Alex chuckled.  What she’d said translated to,  _ I meant no offense _ .

Alex had studied eight years of Russian in high school and at West Point.  It had been useful to her in the Army and had been one of the bullet points on her resume that got her into the Secret Service.  But it had never had more value to her than right now, seeing the little raised eyebrow of pleasant surprise on the President’s face.

“Oh, I just have one more question,”  Alex said as she wrote quickly:   _ Why me?   _ “Your husband will be attending, correct?”

Astra took the pad back and wrote quietly for a few moments before responding. “Yes, of course.  He wouldn’t miss it.”

She tore off the paper, folded it up quickly and handed it to Alex.  Alex stuffed it in her pocket.  “Alright, then.  I’ll make sure our plans accommodate that.”

She walked out of the office and unfolded the paper as she walked away down the hall.  It said:

_ Because I trust you, Alexandra. _

`

  
  


********************

  
  


Guarding someone’s life twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, gave you a strange window into who they were.  You might never open up to one another, never have a deeply personal conversation, but you’d get these sort of voyeuristic little moments that made you feel you knew them in ways that the public didn’t.  

Alex stayed out of the way at the state dinner, invisible to anyone who wasn’t looking for her.  The Russian team had cooperatively taken positions keeping out of the way of her own people.  The evening was moving smoothly.  Alex was on point and never took her eyes off of Freefall.  The White House ballroom was comfortably full, a string quartet was filling the room with elegant waltzes, and the woman whose life she was responsible for was taking up space the way she did:  a dark plum colored velvet gown draped over her magnificent form, pearls glowing softly around her neck, and a radiant smile.

She watched her moving across the dance floor with her husband, Non.  They smiled at each other, and seemed to be bantering back and forth.  

> _ Alex had found herself at the end of the hallway where the President’s Bedroom was situated, and happened to catch a moment:  Astra, saying goodnight to her husband at her bedroom door.  Astra, reaching to touch his shoulder and being gently rebuffed with a sad smile.  Non, walking down the corridor to the Living Room, which had been converted to a suite of his own.  Astra, watching him go.   _

Tonight, he was handsome in a white tie and tuxedo.  Tonight, they were friends.  But even tonight, watching them waltzing easily together with a certain practiced familiarity, Alex saw no warmth in him.  No wonder Astra craved the heat of their stolen encounters.  

She watched Ambassador Galerkin come over, draw her away with a glass of champagne.  Watched Non watch her go, not understanding the indifference in his eyes.  How?  How, when this woman was his, could he not feel the sticky heat of jealousy?

Astra stood talking with Galerkin for several moments, with Bach’s Water Music Suite playing in the background.  He was a real silver fox, that guy;  tall, handsome, angular face, knew how to rock gentlemen’s evening wear.  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small box, presenting it to her with a warm smile.  Was she especially radiant at his attentions or was it Alex’s imagination?  Astra tugged the red silk ribbon off of the tiny box and found, inside, a pair of earrings.  Alex watched a conversation take place, in which the Russian ambassador no doubt explained some beautiful story of how they were a piece of her ancestral homeland or something.  She thought he heard him say something about “artifacts of the meteor showers in 1998.”  Alex knew she couldn’t compete with that.  Maybe Non couldn’t either.

But why wasn’t he trying?

> _ It was a week after her swearing-in.  Astra was having a rare moment alone in the Rose Garden.  She’d been beset by an indecent number of difficulties in her transition process, and now, just barely having been sworn in, she was being asked to speak to the nation on an unspeakable event of violence.  She was taking a moment to process it all.  Somehow, Alex suspected, it wasn’t the difficulties she was facing that brought her to those quiet tears she was shedding, but the fact that she was dealing with them alone.  As her Secret Service, her shadow, Alex couldn’t help her.  But she saw.  She knew. _
> 
> _ She’d gotten to know Freefall’s preferences on the campaign trail, so she flagged down one of the President’s aides to get her a cup of very strong, very hot black coffee.  She took it from the younger woman and walked over, quietly set it down beside her on the bench, and walked away. _

Alex watched Astra take off her pearl earrings and replace them with the ones from Galerkin’s box.  They hung, delicate and subtle, just off of her neck.  Her long neck, the one that Alex so badly wished she could sink her teeth into but never did because they couldn’t risk her leaving marks.  Green gems sparkled in them.  Alex couldn’t say if they were all that beautiful or they just looked that way on her.  

Galerkin guided Astra out to the dance floor.  Non wasn’t even watching anymore.  He’d gone back to his table and was sipping from a glass of something or other, making small talk with Galerkin’s wife, who wasn’t watching the dance floor either.

Astra and Galerkin looked striking together.  He was an excellent dancer, better than Non as far as Alex could tell.  Was the champagne getting to Astra?  Her radiance was beginning to seem… excessive.  It occurred to Alex that the President was an incredibly disciplined woman: Alex had never seen her drunk, not even tipsy, not even once.

What was different?

Well.  Galerkin was different, she mused.  Why wouldn’t Astra fuck a handsome Russian diplomat if she could have that instead of the help?   _ That’s what you are, Danvers.  All that talk about her respecting you, but you are still the help. _

She watched Astra drink more champagne.  It didn’t usually affect her, but tonight it seemed as though it was.  Why didn’t her husband care?  Alex knew there was no other woman, no other man, no nothing.  He had Secret Service coverage just the same as his wife and they knew, he wasn’t skulking around.

A hand rested gently on her shoulder, firm and familiar.  A voice said to her, “You keep her safe, Danvers, and that is all.”

Hank Henshaw.  He was technically retired but served an advisory role from time to time, so it wasn’t that strange to run into him at an event like this.  “I know, sir.”

He chuckled quietly.  “Judging by the look on your face, Agent, I don’t think you do.”

Henshaw always knew her better than she wished he did.  “If you say so, sir.”  She turned around to look at him.

He was smiling at her the way he did, that vaguely amused paternal smile that told her he wasn’t buying a word of it.  “Agent, you keep her safe, and that is all,” he repeated.  “Whatever it is that’s making you angry, I suspect it’s about something that is not your damn business.”

“It is my business, sir.”

Hank shook his head.  “Not her love life.  Not her marriage, her fidelity.  And certainly not who she dances with at a State dinner.  I don’t care if Galerkin poisoned your dog, you need to get that look off your face.”

> _ Alex knew that Astra was fond of dogs, because she’d found her at a dog run during one of her elopements, feeding biscuits to a particularly excited Yorkie and chatting with its owner.  Alex also knew that Astra had looked several times into getting a dog in the White House but never did it.   _
> 
> _ Alex knew that Astra liked Shakey’s Pizza best out of all the pizza in town, but that her favorite meal was brunch.  Eggs benedict usually.  She knew that Astra had a killer dunk but was weak guarding her left side.  She knew that the President frequently worked barefoot when she was alone in her office.  And she knew the ways she liked to be touched when she needed to brought off after a long, tense day.  She knew the off-rhythm of Astra’s breath, the melting behind her eyes when she was being stroked the right way.  Galerkin didn’t know those things, did he. _

Alex collected herself.  “Sorry, sir.  I just don’t like what they’re doing in the Ukraine right now,” she lied.  Well, it was half a lie.  She didn’t like what Russia was doing in the Ukraine.  But that wasn’t why she was looking at the ambassador with murder in her eyes.

Hank chuckled.  “Did I teach you nothing?  Keep your opinions to yourself, Danvers.”

Alex nodded dutifully.  “Yes, sir.”

But she realized as she watched them, and watched Astra become strangely, progressively more tipsy, that she burned with jealousy.  She looked at Galerkin’s arm around Astra’s waist and wanted to break it off.  She wanted to grab Non by the collar and yell at him, “WHY DON’T YOU CARE?”  

As if he could feel her eyes on him, Non got up from the table, excused himself from his conversation with Mrs. Galerkin.  He approached Alex.  “Agent, I need to remain here for diplomatic reasons, but would you kindly escort my wife back to her room?  I’m concerned that exhaustion may be causing her to … Experience the effects of the alcohol more acutely.”

_ Your wife, _ Alex thought dryly.   _ The woman who sleeps down the hall from you. _

Lane’s voice crackled in Alex's earpiece.  “Uh, sir?  Does Freefall look OK to you?”

_ Freefall. The first woman in the United States airborne. The four-star general who tackled her own secret service to the ground when a gunman took aim. _

Alex stepped away and answered quietly, “Actually, that's just what the first gentleman and I were discussing.  Schott, meet us by the north entrance.”

“Copy that.”

Non orchestrated it so that the president's aide was the one to call her away. To help her make a graceful exit.  Alex dimly heard her say, “I'm so sorry to interrupt, Mr. Ambassador, but the president has an urgent…”  The rest was buried under the swells of the string Quartet, but it didn't matter.  Like any extraction, it was a team effort.

_ The president. The shining hope of her party and the country. The leader of the free world, the fearsome mother in chief.   _

But as her aide escorted her over to Alex, all that Alex could see was Astra.  All she could feel was relief at taking her away from the ambassador, from her husband, from this whole damn crowded room.  As Alex gallantly took her arm to make sure that her steps were steady, all she could feel was Astra.  


_ Astra.  Strong, powerful, passionate, lonely.  Astra. _


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex escorts Astra back to the Presidential Bedroom.

Alex, Schott and the President made their way through the corridors toward the Presidential Bedroom.  Astra’s weight shifted unevenly, and Alex had to focus to keep their stride even.  “This is not the way to the Oval Office,” Astra observed.

“No ma’am, it’s not,” Alex replied.

“I take it then that there is no actual emergency.”

“That’s correct, ma’am.”

“Did my husband ask you to do this?”

“Yes, ma’am.  He was concerned that you were … exhausted.”

Astra snorted.  “I’m never exhausted.”  She leaned down and whispered into Alex’s ear.  “I’m always exhausted.”  The brush of her lips sent shivers down Alex’s spine.

“I know, ma’am.”  Alex didn’t imagine that Astra felt physically exhausted all that often, but the weight of the office surely took its toll. That was the only explanation for what was happening between them, after all.  The weight of it all.

The weight that Alex bore on her arm was pleasant, but it ached in her chest because it would end soon.  She made herself strong for Astra’s weight, observed that the perfume she wore tonight was different than her usual Chanel.  It was something stronger, something cooler, woodier.  Alex decided she preferred it.  

“I have to admit, ma’am, I’ve never seen you this… exhausted,” she remarked.

Astra smirked.  “Maybe I’ll explain it someday, Agent.  But not tonight.”  They walked a moment more in silence.  “Do you get exhausted much, Agent?”

“I did at West Point, but not so much these days,” Alex answered dryly.  “Every once in awhile, on a Saturday night.”  She saw in her peripheral vision that Astra was smiling a little.  “Couple pints of bitter.”

“I prefer–”

“Scotch and soda,” Alex interjected.  She’d watched the President drink on enough social occasions.

She remembered that Schott was with them and she needed to be an example.  She shouldn’t be overly chummy with the President.  She was quiet the rest of the way to the Presidential bedroom.  “Well, ma’am,” she began when they arrived at the door, “Schott will be on watch in this wing tonight.  I hope you get some rest, and–”

“Actually,” Astra interrupted, “would you be so kind as to come inside for a moment?”  She paused as Alex looked quizzically at her.  Astra nodded backward.  “I… could just use a hand with the zipper on this.”

Alex nodded.  She waved Schott off.  “I got this, Schott.  Girl stuff.  Go take your post.”

He walked off.

Alex’s heart raced as she entered the Presidential Bedroom.  It wasn’t the first time she’d been in here, but it was the first time since the birth of their affair.  Her earpiece was still crackling with the discreet back and forth chatter of the agents in the ballroom.  Astra flicked on a bedside lamp that cast mellow light on everything in a small circle near them; the thick carpet, the carved wood of the end table, the burnished glow of Astra’s dress.  Soft shadows cupped Astra’s face and the curves of her waist and breasts.  She took off her necklace, laid it on an end table, and then took off the earrings.  She held them out to Alex in her palm.  “Agent,” she said, “I want you to take these.”

Alex was confused.  “But… they were a gift from the Ambassador…”

Astra shook her head.  “I think they’d look better on you.”  She pressed them into Alex’s palm and closed her fingers around them.  “They’re quite rare, you know, these stones.  These were bits of the meteor showers of 1998.  The Russians and Chechens have built up quite a bit of mythos and superstition around them.  They’re very hard to find, these days.”

Alex dropped them into her pocket.  She didn’t know what to think.  “Um… thank you,” she said uncomfortably.

She smiled, and turned around, showing Alex her back.  “Agent?  If you wouldn’t mind?”

Alex stepped forward.  She gently tugged the zipper down, peeling aside the velvet to reveal the soft skin and the muscles that played beneath it, the lacy edge of a black silk slip.  Despite her best judgment, she brushed her fingers down Astra’s spine, and her heart skipped as Astra trembled in response.  Astra shrugged out of the dress.  It dropped to the floor, soundless, into a heap.  She stepped out of it, and turned around.  Alex looked at her in her silky black slip, her hands filled with fevered memories of what lay beneath it.  

She reached up, gingerly, tracing her finger down the thin strap of the slip, down Astra’s shoulder to where it stopped at her chest.  Her heart sped up.

Astra drew a little breath, the only sound between them, and moved herself closer to Alex.  Alex breathed her perfume, and her blood roared.  She nuzzled gently at Astra’s bare shoulder, slowly brushed her cheek against the side of her neck.  She wanted a taste of her skin but feared that a taste wouldn’t be enough, that if she tasted she would kiss, she would bite, she would suck, she would leave marks that would be delicious reminders of this moment.

And that wouldn’t do.

Alex felt Astra’s lips brush a little spot along her hairline, felt those strong arms draw her close, felt those hips begin to gently urge themselves against her.  Alex tilted her head back and looked up at Astra.  Her eyes were soft, her lips silky, her body wanting this.  Their bodies rubbed against each other, softly at first, and Alex felt herself flood.  Closer, closer.  Drawn into a rhythm only they shared, a waltz to the quartet of their rolling hips, grasping fingers, beating hearts, silent breaths.  Closer.  

When Alex closed her eyes, she felt Astra’s breath on her lips, felt Astra’s lips just barely brush hers, once, and then moment later again.  Her mouth tingled, and with each silent exhale, each slow drag of their sex against each others’ thighs, she felt her restraint dissolving, felt Astra’s lips brush hers again, lighter than butterfly wings, felt her warm breath.  Her fingers laced along Astra’s shoulders, along her bare, muscled biceps.

She watched Astra bite back a sigh as she moved them softly over the swell of her breasts, up her neck.  Alex finally took what she’d wanted all night; cupping Astra’s face in her hands, she drew her into a slow, hot kiss.  

God, how she wished she could let out the moans that rose in her throat.  God, Astra’s lips were soft, and her mouth was alive and wet, and it moved with gentle heat against Alex’s.  Her tongue darted across Alex’s lips and into her mouth, and Alex pressed in deeper.  Astra’s kiss was as passionate as everything else about her, but softer, too.  She tasted like champagne.  She felt like sex and starlight and summer.  Alex wanted to let go.  Let go of herself, of everything, and just have her, bury her in kisses and sighs.  What would be like, to take her in that huge bed that was just a few feet away from them?  To lay her down, strip away what little remained of her clothing, and have her there, slowly, repeatedly, noisily, joyously? She was suddenly aching to know.

That was a dangerous feeling.

And Astra wasn’t sober.  

She stopped.  “Ma’am….”

Astra’s brow furrowed.  

Alex floundered.  Goddamn earpiece.  “You should get to sleep,” she said, dejectedly.

Astra shook her head.  “I’m fine, Agent,” she pleaded.

Alex looked around desperately for something to write with.  “Feel free to call on us if you need anything.”

Astra pulled a pen and paper out of the bedside table and wrote on it:   _ I NEED  _ _ YOU _ _. _

Alex snatched it from her and scribbled:   _ You’re not sober.  I don’t want it like this.   _

Astra’s chin trembled.  She wrote:  _  I’M NOT DRUNK. _

Her shitty handwriting said differently.  But then again, it was hard to tell the difference between it and her normal bad penmanship.  Alex shook her head.  “I should return to the ballroom. Goodnight ma’am.”

Alex could barely feel her feet, could barely walk straight as she made her way back.  Why?  Why did she just do what she did?  Was it really that she didn’t want Astra when she was tipsy, because it complicated an already complicated situation?  

Or did that kiss force her to realize that she was in even more trouble than she wanted to admit?

_ The only reason you care whether she respects you... is if you care,  _ Vasquez had said. _  Do you care, Danvers? _


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Astra gets Alex's attention, in a big way.

Alex had gone home late that night, aching and confused.  She wanted Astra.  Their bodies understood one another, fit together in ways unique and electric.  More than that, she'd slowly been piecing together in her mind who this woman actually was, something she'd always avoided, but couldn't help doing since they'd started having sex.  And a part of her wanted more than just stolen, silent fucks in untrafficked corners of the Capitol. She was faced with that bare fact when they kissed.  But that couldn't be possible, she supposed.

But the earrings...  Why did Astra give her the earrings?  Had she seen the way Alex was looking at the ambassador?  Was it her way of letting her know that she felt nothing for him?  Was it sharing a part of herself?  She was still confused.

She was about to put pen to paper and write her a note –and say what?– when she got a text from Vasquez:   _ You may want to come in early tomorrow.  Freefall moving Friday speech to NM instead of WHPR.   _

Alex nearly hit the roof.  Astra had been using her bully pulpit to pass meaningful gun reform, and she’d finally managed to twist Speaker Grant’s arm to get a bill to the floor of the House that was flawed, but would wedge the door for more.  She was now sounding the alarm to get Americans behind it, to make their desire for reform clearly heard to the representatives who were going to vote on it.  So she’d planned this speech in advance of the vote.  It was supposed to take place in the White House Press Room.  But now, advocates of the bill were planning a rally on the National Mall for the same day, and apparently Astra had decided she wanted to deliver her speech at that rally.

So there it was.  When she wanted Alex’s attention, she’d run off and do something dangerous.  But this was a different level.  She must have been more upset by the abrupt end to this evening than Alex had even understood.

How the hell was she supposed to sleep now?

  
  
  


**************

  
  


Alex’s eyes blazed, even as Astra’s remained cool.  It was six a.m., Alex was already stretched thin, and frustrated past reckoning.  This didn’t feel like foreplay.  It just felt like a fight.  Alex’s fists were balled up in her pockets.  “Madam President, given the current climate of unrest, and how  _ difficult _ it is to secure the National Mall, I would be remiss not to object to this!”

Astra looked at her from behind the desk.  Clearly she was still hurt from Alex leaving things the way she did last night.  Clearly, that was what she wanted to be talking about.  “Your objection is noted, Agent Danvers.  Is that all you wanted to discuss?”

“Oh, no you don’t!”  Alex placed her palms on the desktop and leaned forward.  “This is real!  This is a real danger.  You have been fired on before, Madam President.  My job is to prepare and protect from that!”

“And I expect you to do your job,” Astra answered curtly. 

“That is all that I ever do, and I am excellent at it.”  Frustrated, Alex grabbed a pad and pen.   _ I want to talk about last night but we have to discuss this FIRST. _  “This is your safety.  This is your LIFE.  I cannot allow you to endanger it or I would not be doing my job!”

“I wouldn’t want a black mark on your record,”  Astra said archly.  

Alex felt her cheeks flush.  “That’s unfair, ma’am.”  She scribbled on the pad:  _  IT IS ABOUT MORE THAN MY JOB.   _

“Oh, is it?” Astra’s cool was cracking.

“You know it is.”  She scribbled on the pad.   _ YOU ARE MORE THAN MY PRESIDENT. _

Astra went still.  After a moment, she abruptly stood up, crossed around the desk, and marched up to Alex’s face.  “Maybe you’re right,” she admitted after a moment.  

She stroked Alex’s cheek.  The spark was immediate and powerful.  Alex caught hold of her wrist and kissed her hard, and Astra kissed back, not backing away.  Alex felt those strong arms snake around her waist, holding her tightly, pressing their mouths together, taking everything Alex could give her.

Alex lost herself in it for a moment, her body responding before her mind could rein it in.  She stopped.  “Ma’am,” she said carefully, “please.  This is too important.  You can’t endanger your life this way.”

Astra kissed her again.  There was no excusing it, no blaming it on drink.  Astra wanted to be face to face with her, taste her lips, breathe her breath.  Even at six a.m. and stone cold sober.  Alex felt a hand slip inside her blazer, fingers streak up her ribs, massaging her breast.  “I’m not afraid of this,” Astra said softly, pulling back from the kiss and touching her forehead to Alex’s.  She was supposed to be talking about the speech, but her eyes told Alex she meant what was happening between them.

Alex’s own hands hesitantly stroked Astra’s hair.  “But I am,” she admitted after a moment.

Astra unbuttoned Alex’s trousers and slipped a hand inside, brushing her fingertips over Alex’s clit through her underwear.  “Why?”  She rubbed gently, slowly.  Alex died a little.

“It’s just… there’s so much risk…”  Her words trailed off.  “Oh for fuck’s sake,” she grumbled, and tore the damned earpiece out of her ear and stuffed it into her pocket.  She surrendered for a moment to the stroking, the hot currents that ran up her back the way they did.  “I’m not playing around,” she whispered.  “I don’t want you hurt.  I can’t let that happen.”

“I know you’re afraid of that,”  Astra whispered back, her fingers working Alex gently, slowly.  She was watching Alex’s face, drinking in the effects of her tender stroking. “But you’re afraid of this, too.”

Alex grabbed Astra’s wrist and stopped her touches for a moment.  “Of course I am,” she hissed.  “How can I not be?”

Astra stared into her eyes, challenging her.  “I know your record, Agent.  Special Forces.  Bronze Star twice in Afghanistan.  Purple Heart.  And certainly no qualms about scuffling with your Commander in Chief.  You’re so brave, why are you afraid of this?”

Alex pulled away, growing frustrated.  “I don’t know,” she said sarcastically.  “You’re supposedly straight, you’re married, you’re the President?”

“So what?” Astra snapped.  

“So what?  So I could sink my career!  Your Presidency!  And that’s not acceptable!  Your Presidency is too important!”  Goddamnit, why did she not seem to care about the risk of any of this?  

“You’d never know it given the way you criticize everything I do,” Astra retorted.

Alex scowled and zipped her trousers.  “I’m honest with you,” she shot back angrily.

“Yes, to a fault!”

“Maybe so, but maybe you need that.  Isn’t that  _ why _ you trust me?”

They stood staring at each other, their chests moving heavily.  

Alex shook her head in frustration.   _ Fucking Freefall.  This is what you get with a woman who used to jump out of airplanes into enemy fire. _  She reached into her pocket and took out her earpiece.  She looked at it for a moment, then popped it back in.  “Alright, ma’am.  I will begin making arrangements to keep you alive at the National Mall on Friday.”  She turned on her heel, frustrated on more levels than one, and stormed out of the Oval Office.

  
  
  


**************

  
  


_ Do not get emotionally involved with the people you protect,  _ Henshaw had told her.  She had swept every rooftop in a five mile radius and had agents on some of them.  She had teams posted, and plainclothes agents in the crowd.  And she was standing at the rear of the stage, insistent that she be personally responsible for the President’s safety.  This was why Henshaw had told her, do not get emotionally involved.  Because no matter that she had done everything she possibly could, it didn’t feel like enough.  It would never feel like enough.

Struck by the fact that Astra had clearly gone and read Alex’s military record at some point, Alex went and did the same for Astra’s.  Of course, she had all kinds of commendations and awards for battlefield valor.  She had all the same medals that Alex did, only more of them, plus more than a few that Alex didn’t.  Yet Alex had never had a moment where her medals made her feel she was invulnerable, the way Astra seemed to.  And though Astra’s service record showed only one injury, it was a doozy.  Her lower abdomen was pierced by a hurtling metal fence post in an explosion in Chechnya.  It missed her spinal cord by about half an inch .  She should have been killed.  As it was, she had to endure several surgeries in the Army hospitals in Chechnya in order to be able to even tolerate sitting up.  They had to remove what was left of her shattered uterus.  It wasn’t clear whether she was going to walk again.  She had a couple of experimental synthetic vertebrae.  

And then, when she was moved back to the States, she made a near-miraculous recovery at Walter Reade Hospital.  She stayed in a room that faced east, with the curtains open wide all day long, and she mended almost completely in a matter of a few weeks.   Her body accepted a transplant of intestinal tissue to replace what was lost.  The perforations in her bladder healed up completely.  She was able to walk.  Nobody had ever seen anything like it.

_ No wonder, _ Alex thought.   _ No wonder she thinks she’s invincible.  She should have been killed in Chechnya. _

The chatter in her earpiece was constant as she stood onstage behind the President.  And that was who she was, right now.  She was the President.  She was addressing the nation, pleading the very important case that the nation’s culture of violence needed to change, and that disarming was the first step.  She quoted the Bible, spoke of beating swords into plowshares.  She listed the names of many of the dead, killed needlessly with weapons that should never have been in the hands of the average citizen.  She spoke of the violence she witnessed in war, first hand, in broken nations like Iraq, Bosnia, and Chechnya where she was injured.  She was determined that America would not become a broken nation.

Alex was watching the clusters of second amendment protesters that dotted throughout the large, mostly supportive crowd.  The crowd was what made her most uneasy.  It was simply not possible to search every single person, not with a hundred thousand people crowded onto the mall.  She felt uneasy.  It was too obvious.  If there was a shooter in this crowd, it wasn’t likely that they’d be hanging around a group that was drawing so much attention to themselves.  

She wished she could listen to the President’s words and be inspired by them, but she was too busy looking for a problem.  Too busy looking for a bullet to throw herself in front of.

Her earpiece was alive with chatter.  Olson’s voice, from his position atop the first set of speaker platforms.  “Agent Danvers, I know we vetted the tech crew but there’s a lighting guy back there who’s acting a little funny.”

“What do you mean funny?” she asked quietly.

“Keeps leaving his position, walking around the side of the stage, walking back.  Could be nothing, but I thought you should know.”  

“Where is he now?”

“On the ground, stage right.”   

Alex was standing at stage left.  She slowly reached for her sidearm.  “Olson.  Do you have a clear shot at him?”

“Sir?”

“If it’s necessary, do you have a clear shot?”

A pause.  “Yes, sir, I think so.”

Alex began to move closer to center stage.  Light sweat broke on her forehead.  She admired Astra but dammit, she’d never protected someone more insistent on painting a target on themselves.

“Sir… Sir, he’s on the move again…”

Alex’s hair stood up on the back of her neck.  

“Sir, he’s heading for the stage right steps.”

“Is he drawing?”  Alex moved more quickly now toward stage right.  

“I… I can’t tell…. He’s got a hand in his pocket...”

“Damnit, Olson, is he drawing?”

“He’s climbing stage right steps … sir, he’s drawing!  He’s armed, he’s armed!”

“Take a shot, Olson, take a shot!”

Alex ran toward Astra.  She saw the tech coming up on the side of the stage.  “Madam President!”  she yelled.

Time froze.

Two shots rang out in the same instant as she dove for the President.  Olson’s, and the shooter’s.  One of them missed.  It was Olson’s.

She wasn’t fast enough.  Astra was knocked backward into Alex’s arms by the force of the bullet coming from stage right.  She had to have taken it right in the gut.  Alex didn’t think, she just held Astra with one arm, and with the other, she drew and fired.  

She couldn’t hear sound.  She just watched her muzzle flash, watched the shooter convulse when he was hit.  Watched him go down when he was struck by a second shot from Olson.  She shouted into her earpiece to ready Marine One to chopper the President out of there to get her to the hospital.  

She could feel Astra’s breathing, thank God, she was breathing.  “Ma’am,” she whispered, her throat closing, “we’re going to get you out of here.”

She barked orders into her headset.  It was a blur, a strange silent envelope.  She and four agents rushed the President from the stage and hustled her back to Marine One.  She ordered Capitol police to break up the crowd.  “You’re alright, you’re alright,” Alex kept saying in Astra’s ear.   _ Please don’t die, please don’t fucking die. _

She sent her teams to search the mall.  She alone would accompany the President to Walter Reade.  Alex sat beside her in Marine One, clasping her hand, whispering over and over, “You’re alright, you’re alright.”  Astra leaned back in the deep leather seat, eyes closed, her hand over her abdomen.  As the chopper lifted off the ground, Astra opened her eyes and looked at Alex.

“I know,” she whispered.

Only now did Alex realize: there was no blood.  

Astra removed her hand.  There was definitely no blood.

Alex tore out her earpiece, her eyes wide.  “I saw you get hit,” she whispered.  “I saw you.  I felt you stagger back into my arms…”

Astra nodded.  “Yes.”

“So… was it a fake?”  She felt herself start to get angry.  “Was this some stunt to get your bill through?”

Astra shook her head, smiling wearily.  “No.”

“What, then?”

Astra paused.  “It’s a long story.”

“Well, you need to tell me.  And you’d better make it fast, we’re going to be at the hospital inside of five minutes.”

Astra hesitated.

“Do you trust me or not?” Alex persisted.

Astra stroked Alex’s cheek, still smiling gently at her.  “I’m bulletproof.”


	8. Chapter 8

Alex stared at Astra.  There had to be some other explanation.  “How… how is that possible?”

“I promise you,” Astra repeated, “I will tell you everything in detail, but right now, we need to explain this to the hospital when we get there.”

Alex cursed under her breath.

“I trust you, Alexandra.  I need you to trust me.” 

Alex cursed again, then shimmied out of her jacket.  Astra’s eyebrow lifted.  Alex unbuttoned the top two buttons of her starched black button down shirt and slid it up over her head.  Underneath, she wore a lightweight kevlar vest.  She quickly tore open the velcro straps and slipped it off.  Astra was smiling at the sight of her in her sports bra.  “This is not a date,” Alex snapped, handing the vest  to Astra.  “Put this on...  We’ll tell them at the hospital that I put it on you as a precaution at the last minute.”

She scrambled back into her shirt and jacket as Astra quickly slipped out of hers, and put on the kevlar vest (Alex helped her fasten it).  They just finished the exchange just in time to land on the hospital roof.  

“And after we go through all the red tape that we have to go through after an attempt,”  Alex warned her, “you are going to tell me everything.”

She popped her earpiece back in to continue directing the team.

  
  


******

  
  


The next day, the President was scheduled to leave on Air Force One for a climate change conference in Rome.  Climate change was, alongside gun reform, one of the main pillars of her campaign.  Shooting attempt or not, she was going.  And Alex was going with her.  It would be a long flight, and Astra promised that she’d explain everything on the trip over.

It gave Alex time.  Time to process the fact that the number of shots fired, the number of shells and slugs found, everything added up.  The shooter’s single shot, Olson’s missed shot, Alex’s shot, Olson’s second shot.  Four shots.  Four shell casings.  Four slugs.  Two bullets in the shooter, one in the scaffolding behind the stage, one on the stage floor, about five feet from the podium.  That one matched the shooter’s weapon.  She could still feel the horror in her chest, the feeling of Astra being propelled backwards into her arms.   _ That bullet could have,  _ **_should have_ ** _ struck me, _ she thought.

It didn’t make any sense.  She plunged back into her job.

She checked in with the advance team to make certain that Italian police were ready to guard the outer perimeter of the hotel, that the general Secret Service agents were watching all the Class 3 threats in Rome– people who had records of violence toward elected officials.  She determined that the hotel staff had all been cleared and that those who had not were asked not to work while the President was in town.  She ran down the checklists and made certain that the rest of the agents’ transports had arrived on time and that their vehicles and weapons were secured. She found soothing for her rattled nerves in the running down of checklists, of the detail-mongering necessary for a foreign advance.

Lane was already on the ground in Rome.  Alex trusted her to manage the show until they got there. Vasquez and her team rode in Air Force One.  Once they settled in, Alex took out her earpiece.  “Vasquez, you’re in charge.  I need to have a sit-down with Freefall.”

Vasquez gave her a raised eyebrow.  She hesitated for a moment, glanced at Alex’s earpiece dangling from her fingers, then nodded.

And now, here she sat.  In Air Force One’s conference room.  She tried not to look out the window at the ground, a patchwork thousands of feet below them.  She was too caught up in the adrenaline of the moment to think about it when they were in Marine One, but Alex still wasn’t fond of heights.

She leaned back in the deep cushions of the leather chair, looked at Astra, and waited.  Astra looked back at her, smiling faintly.

“So?” 

Astra slid into the chair next to her.  “So.”

“So is your name really Astra?”

“Yes.”

“But your last name is not really Isaacs, I suppose.”

“No.  It’s In-Ze.  But it’s hard to blend in with a name like that.”

Alex considered her a moment longer.  “And you’re bulletproof.”

Astra nodded.  “Yes.  Well, invulnerable to most kinds of weapons, really.  I have other … gifts, too.”

“What other gifts?”

“I’m extremely fast.”

“Yes, I’ve seen you on the basketball court.”

“I’m faster than that.  I can also fly.”

“I repeat.  Seen you on the basketball court.”

“No, you saw a shadow of me.”

Alex was beyond skeptical.  “OK.  Anything else?  Telepathy?  Invisibility?  Talking to animals?  Laser eyes?”

Astra got up, chuckling silently.  She walked over to the bar and poured a glass of scotch.  “I’m stronger than you can possibly imagine.”  She smiled at Alex’s skepticism.  She sat down.  “Scotch?”

“Yeah, rocks, please.”  Her voice was edged in sarcasm.  She wasn’t even sure why.  And then Astra sat down across from her, puckered her lips, and gently blew on the glass.  Alex’s eyes widened as she watched a delicate layer of frost crystallize across the face of the tumbler.  

“Will that do?”  Astra asked, setting the glass in front of her.

“How…?”  Alex whispered, touching the frost crystals to be sure they were real.

Astra took Alex’s hand.  “I’m not from around here.”

Alex’s hand shook a little.  “Where are you from?”

“A planet called Krypton.  It’s… not exactly around the corner.  It’s twenty-seven-point-one light years, to be exact.”   Astra paused, and her face clouded over.  “It  _ was _ ...twenty-seven-point-one light years.”

Alex absorbed that for a moment.  “Was?”

“Was.  Krypton was dying.  I tried to save it, tried to get the elders to listen to the fact that they were destroying it with core drilling and strip mining.  They didn’t listen.  I had no choice but to flee.”

Alex thought about this for a moment.  That was why eco issues were such a big part of her platform.  “How long have you been here?”

“Since I was a teenager.”

“And your husband?  Is he… like you?”

“Yes.  We were betrothed on Krypton, promised to one another by our families long before we came here. I suppose we didn’t have to keep the arrangement when we got here, but… we were all each other had.”  She looked so sad when she said that.  Alex suddenly understood the strangeness of her their marriage;  it was a partnership held together by loyalty and loneliness, but not passion, not love.  She saw how Non had given up on those things, how Astra had still wanted them.  How being the last of their kind bound them inextricably, yet not enough, not in that way.  

“Does he know about …”  She gestured vaguely between them.  “...this?”

Astra hesitated.  “He understands that you are… special to me.  We have not discussed to what extent.”

A sober silence settled between them for a moment while Alex processed these things.  She thought about the way losing her father at a young age had affected her, the unfairness of him being taken when she still needed him, and how her mother had never been the same after that.  In some sense, she’d lost them both that day.  She couldn’t imagine what it would be like, losing her whole family, her home, its landscapes and skylines, its music, art, poetry, architecture...    “So, these… abilities…?”

“I only have them here, on Earth.  It’s the way my biology responds to your yellow sun.  I have intense hearing, vision.  It’s more or less impossible to injure me.  I metabolize things quickly and heal almost instantaneously.”

“So… why were you injured in Chechnya?”

Astra winced.  “Ah, that.  Do you remember that meteor shower in ‘98?  All those big meteors that hit in Russia, Chechnya and Georgia?”

Alex nodded. “Where those earrings came from.”

“Those weren’t just any bits of space rock.  Those were pieces of my world.  Pieces of Krypton.  The area was still lit up with Kryptonite radiation.  It saps my abilities when I’m exposed to it.”  

That explained the State dinner.  Those earrings had Kryptonite in them.  Astra had been addled by the radiation from even that small amount.  It explained why Astra had given them to her, too.  “You wanted me to take those earrings away from you because they were screwing you up.”

Astra nodded.  “Obviously, I couldn’t be rude and not put them on at the dinner, but yes.  I can’t just have kryptonite floating around.”

What went unspoken now was that Astra had been, yet again, trusting her, in ways that Alex hadn’t even understood in that moment.  And that now, Astra was trusting her further: she had made it clear in no uncertain terms that she had placed in Alex’s care a means of hurting her, of making her vulnerable.  The tactician in Alex’s head still had to ask, though:  “So, is that stuff dangerous to humans?”

Astra shook her head.  “No.  Doesn’t affect you at all.”

“Did you know it would make you vulnerable when you went into Chechnya?”

Astra nodded.  “I suspected as much.”

“Then why’d you go in?”

“I’m a soldier, Alexandra.  I had a job to do.  I just did what you do every day.”

That was why she had no other injuries on her war record.  That was why she didn’t heal in Chechnya.  That was why she recovered so fast when they brought her back to the States.  That was why she was fearless.  

Alex stood up and walked away from the table.  She walked to the window and saw the sheets of silver clouds rolling away into the distance.  Nope, she decided, her stomach lurching, back to the table.  She stood in front of Astra, trying to process everything.  “That’s why you tackled me to the ground at the University of Virginia.  That’s why you were in front of the bullet yesterday.  You put yourself there.”

“Yes.  To protect you.  How could I allow you to give your life for mine when mine was never in danger?”

Alex trembled, not ready to accept any of this but realizing there was no other explanation for what she’d seen.  “Why do you need me, then?  My entire mission is a farce,” she whispered, more to herself than to Astra.

Astra reached out, touched her face, her eyes pleading for Alex to understand.  “No, Alexandra, no.  Your job is still so important, don’t you see?  I can’t be found out.”

Alex slapped her hand away.  “I’ve been defending a lie,” she hissed.  “How am I supposed to feel about that?”  

“I know, I know… but I’m trusting you… I still need you to protect me, Alexandra, just not the way you thought.”  Astra stepped closer and moved her put her hands on Alex’s shoulders.

Alex tried to shove her away, but found her immovable as a statue.  She punched Astra’s shoulder and her fist landed on what felt like rock wrapped in flesh.  She winced, cursed, and drew back to hit her again.  Astra’s hands gripped Alex’s wrists and held them with an iron grip.   She couldn’t move.  She looked into Astra’s eyes, her pleading eyes, with their strands of pale and dark blue.  She wanted to be angry.  She wanted to expose this truth to the world.

But Astra had trusted her.

Goddamnit.

She turned away, walked to the window, closed her eyes against the vision of the clouds unfurling in ripples into the horizon.  She didn’t want to think about what was behind her.  Didn’t want to think about what was in front of her.  She wanted it to be a bad dream.

Astra’s arms slid around her waist, pressed close to her.  

“I need you,” she whispered into Alex’s ear, “and I know you understand that.  I know you understand what it means that I’ve told you the truth.  Nobody else knows but you, Alexandra.  I need you to protect me.  More than ever.”

Alex wanted to pull away, but Astra was too strong.  And Alex felt too weak.  They were close.  There was no earpiece.  No other eyes or ears.  They could speak to each other and say what they wanted to say.  She felt sick, but she still wanted Astra’s arms around her, those strong arms that held her up and held her close.  Astra’s brokenness and bravery and strength were so much more than she’d even known, and her feelings surged beyond the meager confines she had given them.  How could she not feel something for a woman whose heart was big enough to fight for a world that wasn’t even her own?   “Astra…”

“Yes,” Astra whispered ecstatically, “yes, that’s my name.”  

Warm lips moved down the side of Alex’s neck.  Soft lips, tender with kisses.  Teeth gently sank into the vulnerable skin, being careful, so careful not to mark her.  Alex leaned back against her embrace, feeling all of her strength, knowing suddenly how much she had been holding back every time they’d had each other.  “Astra, this is so much…”

“I know,” Astra whispered back, “I know.  But I know you.  You’re strong.  You can handle it.”  Those lips moved up again, soft tongue tracing the shell of Alex’s ear.  “And  _ this _ is still real.  This was never anything but real.”  She nipped sharply at her earlobe.  “I know the truth makes this more complicated, but Alexandra... I like my body when it’s with your body.”

_She's quoting me e.e. cummings, I am officially dead._   Alex reached back, gripping Astra’s thighs.  They were so strong, so solid.  Astra’s body was a hot stone, Alex could feel the burn of it through both of their clothes.  A warm hand roughed up the front of Alex’s shirt, patiently worked button after button until it was inside her shirt.  How could this be real?  How could this powerful creature want _her?_  


“Tell me you don’t still want this,” Astra whispered, “and I’ll stop.”  Her touch was hot, tender, unbearable.

Alex whimpered.  “Don’t stop,” she sighed quietly.  They still had to be quiet, but for once, not silent.  Her blood raced and her nerves stood up, aching.  They had much to resolve, but right now, Astra’s hand was inside her shirt, inside her bra, squeezing her tender breast, teasing her erect nipple.  “I don’t know what happens after this,” Alex panted, “but I want this right now.  I need to feel something that makes sense.”

Astra’s other hand unfastened Alex’s trousers and then stopped.  “Open your eyes, Alexandra,” she whispered.  

“I’m afraid of heights,” Alex said in a low, shaky voice.

“You’re brave,” Astra reminded her gently.

Alex was already wet. She opened her eyes.  The clouds were still unfurled outside the window.  She trembled.  She looked down at Astra’s arm encircling her waist, the strong, graceful manicured hand cupping her breast, and everything in her surged with a desire that had suddenly become so much more confusing.  

“Tell me what you want me to do,” Astra whispered.

Alex whimpered again, quieter.  She didn’t know what any of this would mean, but it was still impossible to deny that she and Astra were pulled toward one another, not just by lust, but by intimate familiarity with loss, grief, bravery, honor.  “Touch me,” she begged, giving in to what she wanted.  “Please,” and her voice was a ragged whisper.

Astra’s fingers slid into her trousers, sure and confident, touching her the way she liked, three fingers pressed into her clit, rubbing in deep circles, firm but gentle.  The hot, sweet ache grew and grew under her strokes, and Alex tossed one arm up over her shoulder, to hook around Astra’s neck.  She couldn’t look at the sky outside that window, but what scared her more was the woman whose arms were around her now, and her feelings for her, and what they meant, and what her secrets were, and what those meant.  As if reading her mind, Astra whispered in her ear, “Even as I was berating myself for this, it felt right.”  Her fingers continued, gently, purposefully urging Alex toward orgasm.  “I’m old enough to know the difference between something feeling good and feeling right.  This… feels right.  You...feel right.”

Alex let herself feel it all, let herself receive the deliberate pleasure of Astra’s hands, and she gave herself to all of it.  It was true.  It felt right, and that had always been the worst part about this.  She moaned quietly, and heard a satisfied sigh from Astra as her fingers brought her closer to an edge that terrified her.  

“Let go,” Astra whispered.

Alex moved herself against those fingers, soaking through her underwear, filled with hot, shivering bliss.  So much was different now, so suddenly, and yet, this was still the same.  Whatever this was between them, it was still electric.  “Oh God…”

And there it was.  She shuddered against Astra’s warm body, broke against her like water, coming once, and then immediately again.  She felt as though she was plummeting through the silver clouds outside the window.

“Yes,” Astra whispered. “Let go, Alexandra.  Let yourself freefall.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex, Astra, and Rome at night. <3

Alex ignored the raised eyebrow she’d gotten from Vasquez when she walked out of the conference room.  She had too much to do.  Foreign advances were always a headache and Alex never slept much when Freefall was traveling.  Part of her always secretly wished she’d gone for a desk gig instead of the Presidential Protection Division, when she was running on adrenaline for days at a time and keeping reams of names and schedules and codes and maps inside her head.

They’d cleared out three whole floors at the Hotel de Russie, as was customary, swept Freefall’s room for bugs, and then installed her own secured electronics so that she could relax with some old television in the evenings (she was fond of, and traveled with DVDs of The Honeymooners and I Love Lucy.).  Alex was too swamped to dwell much on the view of the Roman sun dappling the Spanish Steps from the Presidential Suite, though she catalogued it in her mind that she could now check that off the list of things she’d seen in her travels.

It’d be nice to  _ really  _ see Rome one day, she mused.  But today would not be that day.

Lane was taking five and skimming an English-language newspaper she’d brought with her.  “Did you know,” she asked, chewing on some minty gum that Alex could smell from three feet away, “that the Pope dresses up as a regular priest sometimes, and goes incognito?  Just runs around Rome, talking to regular people?”

Alex snorted.  “Yeah, and I’m sure the Papal Swiss Guard loves it just as much when he does that as we do when Freefall pulls that shit with us.”

Lane laughed.  “You always seem to be able to find her, though, sir.”

  
  


******

  
  


Alex’s day flew.  She’d done everything she could to make sure that the roads would be secure the next day to transport Freefall to the climate conference.  When she was in this mode, she allowed herself to forget the sound of her own voice whispering Astra’s name, allowed herself to forget that even if someone took a shot at Astra, that it would bounce right off.  She only knew one way to do her job, and that was full-bore.  

Despite the new information.  Despite knowing that none of it was truly necessary.  If Alex stayed in the Presidential Protection Division after Astra’s administration, the next President would need it done the same way.

Alex had allowed Vasquez to head up the detail that transported Freefall to a few other stops on her way to the hotel so that she could see to the place and confirm its readiness herself.  The President would be taking a few photo ops near the Piazza Navona and the like.  By the time Astra was settled in, the sun was sinking behind the Roman skyline, twinkling lights beginning to blink into existence against the shadows of all its towers and cupolas.

“Ma’am,” Alex began, as Astra kicked off her shoes and Vasquez closed the door behind them.  

Astra marched up to Alex and yanked the piece out of her ear, stuffing it into the pocket of her blazer.  “Don’t you ma’am me, Alexandra.”

“You do understand that it’s… it’s still bad for you to be reckless, right?  You can’t just go taking off and running around Rome unescorted.  You’re going to draw attention that you don’t want.”

She watched Astra slip out of her suit, her silky slip, her stockings, in silence.  Her voice stuck in her throat.  

“Alexandra,” Astra finally sighed, as she pulled a pair of soft, worn blue jeans out of her suitcase, “have you ever been to Rome?”  She slid into them.  _Astra in blue jeans and a lacy black bra._ _ Sweet Jesus. _

“This is my first time,”  Alex admitted.  “But–”

“But nothing. You’ve accompanied me to Moscow and not seen an opera at the Bolshoi.  To Tel Aviv, but not taken pictures of the White City.  No more of that.”  She slipped a dark blue tee shirt over her head and yanked it down.  “It ends tonight.”

“But–”  Alex began to protest.

“Yes, yes, you’re not here for tourism.  I don’t care.”   She pulled a stretchy black tee shirt over her head, then pulled a Chicago Cubs cap and sneakers out of her suitcase and put them on.  “You know I’m not in any real danger.  And I owe you something.”

Alex frowned.

“Come on, Alexandra.  Don’t you want to know how I’ve escaped your details every time?”  Astra stood with her hands on her hips, dressed down, looking like some impossibly gorgeous model trying to “blend in” somewhere.

Alex sighed and then relented.  “Yes,” she admitted with the petulant tone of a teenager who didn’t want to admit they were wrong.

Astra smiled and walked to the terrace.  And then lightly slipped over the railing.  Alex’s breath stopped altogether as she looked at the President, hovering in the air like an exquisite butterfly, a feather on some soft, steady breeze.  She offered Alex her hand.  

The thought of flying over the streets of Rome in Astra's arms was tantalizing.  But still... Alex shook her head.  “No.  Just pick someplace and I’ll meet you there.  You know I don’t like heights.”

Astra sighed.  “Fine.  Meet me at the Trevi Fountain.”

And then Alex watched her shoot upwards into the sky, a silent star, until she disappeared over the rooftops of Rome.

She ignored the flutter in her chest.  She left the room as though everything was normal.  As she passed the team on the way out, she informed them, “I’m going to do a check of the grounds and the neighborhood, maybe talk to the police.”  They nodded.

She hoofed it over to the Trevi fountain.  She didn’t want to use Secret Service resources or leave a trail if she could help it.  Astra was waiting when she got there, sitting on the edge of the fountain, feeding bits of bread (where had she gotten it?) to a gaggle of pigeons.  She looked up and smiled as Alex approached.

“Calm down,” she told her gently.  “I could hear your heart beating from ten blocks away.”

Alex shook her head in wonder, and sat quietly for a few moments beside her.  Astra handed her a hunk of stale Italian bread, and Alex broke a few pieces off and tossed them to the birds, listening to their warbling and cooing and squawking.

After a few minutes, the phone began vibrating in her pocket.  She pulled it out, and it was precisely what she expected.  An urgent text from Vasquez:   _ Freefall gone rogue again.  Please make radio contact ASAP. _

“They’ve noticed my absence already,” Astra sighed unhappily.

“You’re the President of the United States in a foreign country,” Alex scolded.  "Of course they noticed your absence quickly."  


“Are you going to rat me out?” Astra asked slyly.

Alex paused for a moment.  The air was mild.  The sound of the birds and the slowly muting streets was soothing.  The fountain was illumined by golden lights, the whisper of its water a soft, white noise in her ears, and the faint kiss of its spray cool on her cheeks.  And Astra was beside her.  

She hated herself.  She was going to have to lie.

She texted Vaquez back.   _ Radio non functional.  Pretty sure I know where she is.  Will pursue personally. _

“Agent Danvers,” Astra scolded in mock reproach.  “Lying to the team.”

“Don’t push your luck, Madam President,” Alex retorted.

A moment later, another text from Vasquez.   _ Shouldn’t we assemble teams and fan out? _

Alex sighed.  She glared at Astra for a moment.  She texted back.   _ Negative.  Assemble teams, but hold positions unless I say different.  We do not want to attract attention. _  “See what you have me doing for you?”

“Don’t give me that,”  Astra shot back, her tone playful.  “You’re doing it for you, too.”

Alex frowned, but after a moment, her face softened as she looked at Astra in the gold light of the fountain.  Even under the brim of that stupid baseball hat, she was the kind of beauty that Alex couldn’t believe she had ever resisted.  

“So?  Where do you want to go?” she asked after a moment.

Astra shrugged.  She reached into her pocket and pulled out a couple of European coins.  She pressed one into Alex’s palm.  “Make a wish first.”

Alex wished silently that she had never gotten into this, then realized that what she wished was that there was a way to make it work.  She tossed the coin into the fountain.

“Don’t tell me your wish,” Astra said as she tossed her own coin in.  “Or it won’t come true.”

They wandered toward the Tiber River, hand in hand, Astra telling Alex the little she knew about this little landmark or that.  They passed a street performer singing and playing an accordion.  They talked about Astra’s political choices, why Rome was important, why the Army had been the right choice for her.  About Astra’s affinity for Russian language and culture.  They talked a little in Russian about other things; their childhoods, their favorite memories from growing up.  Astra's family sounded not so different from any loving human family, one that any living soul would grieve at leaving behind. They got gelatos from a street vendor; Alex got chocolate, and Astra got hazelnut.  

They crossed the Tiber River on an old, ornate footbridge.  Alex pointed to some spires lit in green and gold, jutting above the low-slung rooftops on the other side of the river.  “I think that’s Vatican City,” she said, pointing to them.

Astra’s face lit up.  “Can we go?”

Alex glanced anxiously at her phone.  “I suppose,” she said.  “But then I really do have to bring you back.”

  
  


****

  
  


They stood in the piazza in front of St. Peter’s Basilica, bathed in its light.  If there were a God, Alex decided, she could understand why he’d want this to be his house on earth.  They remained arm in arm, admiring its shimmering dome, the majestic steps, the lights it cast on the water, silent for a moment.  “Of all the worlds you could have chosen,” Alex asked softly, after a few moments of silence, “why’d you pick here?”

Astra smiled and gestured around the piazza at the soaring architecture.  “Look around you, Alexandra.  Look at what your people are capable of.”  She took Alex’s face in her hand, ran a thumb over her cheekbone.  “And look at you.  Brave.  Good.  Strong.  Full of fire.  Not on a hundred worlds could I have found one exactly like you.”

Alex closed her eyes, and drew Astra’s face close to hers.  She surrendered to her soft lips, and for a moment, they became just two shadows merging in the light of God.  Her breath stopped, then started, then stopped again.  Her heart trembled in her ribcage.  For a moment, the weight of what they were doing left her shoulders.  She was in Rome, under the stars, bathed in light, kissing a woman who struck her body like a match.  

They parted, and Alex hung onto the magic for a moment longer before they clasped hands and strolled across the Ponte Sant’Angelo.  They paused beneath one of the angel statues that stood along its length.  Alex gazed up at its white marble form, its raised wings.

An elderly priest came shuffling along and paused near them.  He bowed slightly and greeted them with a beatific smile and a “Buonasera.”

Astra nodded.  “Buonasera, padre.”

He gestured around.  “Is a beautiful night, no?”

They nodded.  

He gestured up at the angel statue that they stood beneath.  “You come to visit the statues?”

“We came to see it all,” Alex replied, gesturing around.

“You believe the angels look like this?” he asked in heavily accented English.

Astra smiled and shook her head.  “I think they could look like anything.  They could look like you or me.”

The priest chuckled.  “Sometimes is easier to get the job done that way, no?”

Astra smiled.  “I’ll bet sometimes it is.”

He glanced between them.  “Even angels need to understand the children of God by walking among them,” he observed.

Astra nodded.  “Not just angels, Padre.”

The priest’s eyes danced.  Astra shared a long look with him.  “So it is.  How do we pray for the suffering when we do not understand them?”  He tilted his head.  “But you need a prayer too, no?”

Astra sighed.  “We all do.”

The priest nodded.  “I pray for you.  For wisdom, and for the easing of your burdens.”  He gestured to them in blessing, and then turned to Alex.  “Keep your eye on her.”

“Always do,” Alex replied.

He began to shuffle away.

“Thank you, Your Holiness,” Astra called softly as he walked off.

“Goodnight, Madam President,” he answered, winking over his shoulder at them.

Alex suddenly put together what had happened.  “That was the Pope?” she whispered.

Astra smirked.  “Just a priest,” she sighed, twining her fingers through Alex’s.

“And you’re just a tourist,” Alex retorted. 

“And you’re just my date,” Astra added.

“Date?” Alex repeated with a raised eyebrow.  Alex’s phone buzzed.  Text from Vasquez.   _ Any luck? _

Alex sighed.  “We have to go back.”  

Astra frowned.  “Just a little longer?”

Alex shook her head.  “Astra, we can’t.  It’s been too long. It’s going to look weird if I don’t start having teams canvassing the city.”

Astra huffed.  “Fine.”

“We’ll be here for a few days,” Alex reminded her.  “This won’t be the only chance we’ll get.”

Astra nodded.  “Right.  So you found me at the Vatican, right?”

Alex nodded slowly.  “I guess I did.”

She texted back.   _ Found her at Vatican.  Send a car immediately.  Discretion paramount. _

“Discretion paramount,” Astra repeated teasingly, reading over her shoulder.

“This is my job, you know,” Alex snapped.

Astra’s fingers stroked the back of Alex’s neck.  Her knees felt a little watery.  “And you’re so very good at it.”

“You’re going to misbehave in that car on the way back,” Alex predicted.

“Wouldn’t you be disappointed if I didn’t?” She nibbled at Alex’s ear.

Alex sighed.  Definitely.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex finds herself an accomplice to facilitate a second date in Rome with Astra.

After Freefall was settled in her room, and Alex was on her way back to her own room down the hall, Vasquez approached her.  “A moment, Agent Danvers?”

Alex stopped in front of her door.  “What’s up, Vasquez?  I was just going to try and grab two or three hours before we have to start getting the motorcade teed up for the drive to the conference.”

Vasquez jerked a thumb toward the door.  “Actually, I was hoping we could speak … privately.”

Alex nodded, opened the door, and ushered Vasquez in.  She flicked on some lights, doffed her blazer, and turned to her.  Vasquez was looking at her seriously.  She reached up and yanked out her earpiece.

“Look…” she began hesitantly.  “I apologize if I’m wrong about this, but I don’t think I am.”

Alex didn’t like where this was going.

“But I have to ask you to tell me the truth.”  Vasquez jammed her hands into the pockets of her blazer.  “That woman you told me about … the one you said you were having sex with and probably shouldn’t be…”

Alex rolled her eyes.  “Vasquez, do we really have to talk about this now?”

“It’s Freefall, isn’t it?” Vasquez blurted.  She stood staring at Alex for a moment.

Alex, thunderstruck, took a moment to collect herself.  Had they been that obvious?  

Vasquez stepped forward.  “Al, come on. I'm not stupid.”  Shit. She was calling her Al.  She meant business.  “Your earpiece keeps ‘crapping out’ lately?  The unmonitored meeting on Air Force One?  Plus I know you weren't talking to the Italian police earlier, I called down there looking for you.”  Her eyes softened and became sympathetic.  “And y’know, maybe you can fool everyone else but I've known you too long.  I've seen how you look at her when you think nobody's looking.”

Alex’s shoulders slumped.  She had to have known Vasquez would figure it out eventually. 

“Look,” she went on, “this affects the job, and we’ve gotta talk about that too, but this is just me asking as your friend, okay?  I’m just Susan right now.  And I’m worried that my buddy is about to fuck up her life.”

Alex gritted her teeth.  Damnit.  “Susan, I’m fine.  I’m not going to fuck up my life, okay?”  She didn’t want to get into this because where could she possibly draw the line about what to tell her or not tell her?

Vasquez wasn’t satisfied.  “What is it, Al?  I mean, do you … are you … in love?  Because you know, she’s straight.  And married. And, you know... the President.”  Vasquez was worried Alex was going to get her heart broken and bring down the administration along with her.

Maybe she was right.  It had been dangerous enough when it was just sex.  But Alex didn’t really know what they were going to do, now that they’d acknowledged that there was something more than that between them.  She thought of the kiss in front of St Peter’s and the way it had felt easy and light.  The hour they'd spent wandering Rome had been the most romantic date she'd ever been on.

“Look… I… I don't know what it is.  It's not just sex.  It's more than that.”

Vasquez was frowning and shaking her head.  “And what about the husband?”

“You and I both know that's barely even a marriage,” Alex snapped.

Vasquez sighed with resignation. It was the same sigh that Alex had heard at West Point when Vasquez realized that Alex fully intended to sneak off campus to meet that girl she was in love with.  It was the same sigh that Alex had heard in Kandahar when Vasquez realized that yes, Alex would be leading their unit into a frontal assault on a block that was probably infested with snipers.  “I give up.  I can't tell you what to do.  But… don't get hurt.”

Alex nodded wordlessly.

“Now look,” Vasquez went on, becoming more businesslike, “there's also the very real issue that you're now compromised.  So I'm going to suggest that you allow me to take on some of the duties that relate to her directly.  You're not objective.  You need to involve me.”

Alex nodded.  “I need to think about how we do that, but you're right.”

Vasquez paused uneasily.  “And uh… One more question.  Have you been helping her go rogue?”

Alex laughed out loud.  “No. You know it gives me heartburn when she does that.”

“You  _ do _ always find her.”

Alex smiled.  “Just comes from knowing her.”

Vasquez smiled stiffly.  The she stepped forward and placed a hand on Alex’s shoulder.  “Look… if she’s going to do another disappearing act tomorrow that you ‘don’t know anything about–’” She inserted some air quotes here. “–just give me a heads up so I can keep people out of her room and give you an extra couple of hours.”

Alex smiled.  “Thanks, Susan.”

They hugged awkwardly, and Vasquez clapped her on the shoulder.  “This is probably the worst idea you’ve ever had.”  She left the room, smiling and shaking her head.

  
  
  


***********************

  
  


“So,”  Astra sighed as she and Alex sat together in a tourist boat the following night, meandering down the Tiber, “you told Agent Vasquez?”

Alex looked at Astra’s fingers casually laced through hers.  “I didn’t tell her.  She figured it out.  We’re old friends.  She knows me.”

Astra nodded.  “What did you tell her?”

“Nothing about your… ancestry.  Just that we were… something was going on between us.”

“And you trust her?”

“With my life.”

They were quiet for a few moments, enjoying the mild night sprinkled with stars, while the tour guide chattered away in English and Italian about each of the cathedrals and monuments they glided past.  

On the banks of the river, church bells rang.

“So anyway… she made it possible for us to steal a few more hours,” Alex concluded.

“Then let’s make the most of them,” Astra declared.  She whipped out her phone as they slid past a cathedral with a lit-up dome, wound an arm around Alex’s waist, and snapped a photo of them.  Alex was scowling.  Astra looked fondly at it for a moment, and then put her phone away.

“Are you crazy?” Alex demanded.

“Calm down,  _ Agent _ .  I’m not going to post it on Instagram.  It’s just for me.”

Alex flushed, chastened.  Astra kissed her cheek, and whispered into her ear.  “Let’s get off this boat.  I can think of a better way to use this time.”

Alex kissed her, smiling against her lips.

  
  


******

  
  


They found the tiny hotel, a narrow little building with a plaster face, wedged in between stone buildings on a tiny little cobblestoned block.  With hasty fingers, Alex tossed a bunch of different colored bills onto the front desk and snatched the keys from the desk clerk

They clambered up the crooked stairs, two at a time, to the tiny room with the light burning pink through the beat-up shade, and the old wooden bed with the thick, cotton sheets.  Alex locked the door behind them, and they fell into each other's’ arms, alone at last.  Alone.  She pulled Astra toward the bed, kissing her with the fury of someone who knew there wasn’t as much time as they wanted.  She tugged Astra’s clothes and messed up her hair and felt Astra lift her off the floor, kiss her neck, admonish her, “Slow down.”

She laid Alex gently on the bed, settled on top of her, took hold of her wrists, and pinned them to the mattress.  With a soft, deep kiss, she whispered again, “Slow down.”

Alex moved against her, relishing her weight, the feel of her.  Slowing down, she felt the easy tide of Astra’s body moving against her.  Her hips slipped into the rhythm of that tide, her skin longed for Astra’s.  “I want to feel you,” she whispered, “please.”  She pushed against Astra’s hands, wanting to take all of their clothes off.

“Alexandra,” Astra whispered back, “we have time.”  And she held her firm.

More deep kisses, their hunger growing.  Alex felt her nerves standing up, her longing building as they ground their hips against each other through their clothes.  “Please…”

Astra’s eyes were hard, hot stars in the low light, and she gave Alex’s lip a gentle bite.  After a moment, smiling, she released Alex’s hands and let them roam her body.  Alex slipped her hands up the back Astra’s shirt.  Felt the soft skin of her back.  Luxurious.  Astra moaned softly at Alex’s fingernails scraping up her back.  Her sounds of pleasure were delicious.

In the street, church bells rang.

It was already so much better than what she’d imagined, lying down with Astra, feeling her weight, and hearing her voice making the sounds she’d wanted to hear for so long.  Not just the breaths getting caught in the back of her throat, but the release of a sigh, the whispering of her name, like the overture of an aria that reverberated in the hot theatre of Alex’s chest.  “Astra,” Alex sighed.  

She slid her hands into the waistband of Astra’s jeans, gripping her ass and pressing her hips harder against her own.  “Alexandra,” Astra moaned back.

The shiver that went up her back, hearing Astra moaning her name...Alex ground herself harder against her.  “Astra, oh God,” she whimpered.  The dull heat was growing between her legs, and they hadn’t even taken their clothes off.

Astra undid Alex’s buttons, smiling.  “Say my name again.” Her hand slipped into Alex’s shirt and cupped her breast.  She lowered her head and kissed Alex’s collarbone, sucking till it gave her a delightful twinge of pain.

“Astra,” Alex sighed again.  She pulled more insistently at Astra’s t-shirt, and this time Astra surrendered, letting the shirt come up over her head and then land in a heap beside the bed.

Alex stroked at the lacy hem of Astra’s bra, then took her full breasts in hand, squeezing them firmly and enjoying the sweet gasp she elicited.  It was better than she could have imagined, that gasp.  “Take off your clothes,” she pleaded.

Astra sat up, slipped out of her bra.  She rose up onto her knees, unzipped her jeans, and slid them down her thighs.  Alex stayed her hand for a moment; she just wanted to look at her, her muscled, fit body, paused in mid-strip, her pants halfway down.  “Dear God,” she breathed.  She reached up and brushed her fingers down Astra’s hard stomach, over her dark bush, over her clit, down the inside of a muscled thigh.  Astra shivered.  It was delicious.

Astra shimmied the rest of the way out of her pants, then slowly undressed Alex; shirt, bra, pants, underwear, kissing and licking each new bit of exposed skin and declaring it beautiful, declaring it hers.  By the time Alex was fully naked, she was dripping wet.  Alex pulled Astra down onto the bed, and lay her down beside her.  Side by side, face to face, they kissed deeply, hotly, again and again, winding themselves together, their bodies moving in sympathy with each other's arousal.  Alex slipped a finger into her and found her equally soaked. She began laying ravenous, hard bites along Astra’s neck and shoulders, reveling in the knowledge that she couldn't hurt her, wouldn't mark her;  Astra moaned at each one, and the sound of her drove Alex wild.  She pushed deeper, harder, faster, her fingers slipping in and out with such wet, decadent ease.

Astra pushed two fingers into Alex, and Alex groaned out loud, and it was freedom.  

And in her soul, church bells rang.

Astra’s sighs of joy told her everything, that it was freedom for her too, that Alex’s unrestrained keening and breathless cursing were everything she had hoped.  They could have each other, finally, the way they’d wanted to all this time, loud, messy and sweet.  They needed to reserve nothing.

They hooked their fingers inside each other, sliding in and out, the rhythm and intensity of their arousal growing in tandem.  Their moaning built off of each other’s, cries of pleasure, agonizingly sweet, a spiraling duet, overlapping in a symphony as they drew closer to crescendo.  

“Astra, oh God, Astra…”

“Yes… Alexandra, your voice…”

“Fuck me… yes, just like that…”

“Alexandra… Alexandra… come for me…”

They finished together, shuddering, soaking and sweating, panting and sighing, smothering each others’ mouths in kisses.  They held each other in silence for awhile, until Alex found the energy to move down Astra’s body, press her thighs open, and bury her mouth there.  She wanted those moans, those delicious moans, because who knew when she would get them again.  “Astra,” she murmured, tasting her, slowly and softly, “this is all I want.”

And she listened to those moans begin anew,  _ da capo _ , kissing deeply and savoring the taste and sound of Astra’s pleasure, moans and sighs, theme and variation, again and again, five times more.  

In the cathedral of that bed, church bells rang.

Alex didn’t think about later, or tomorrow, or consequences.  She lost herself in Astra, in her body, in her breath.  Her thoughts became broken, just a million little moments of surrender to each part of the woman in that bed with her.

_ Eyes.  Skin.  Lips.  Sighs.  Breasts.  Nails.  Thighs.  Sweat.  Pussy.  Moans.  Thrusts.  Pulse.  Hands.  Lips.  Astra.  Astra.  Mine.  Mine.  _

_ Mine. _


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As ever, Alex and Astra express their feelings best in writing.

On Secret Service letterhead, dated two weeks after the Rome trip:

 

> _Madam President,_
> 
> _It is with deepest regrets that I tender my resignation as the head of your Secret Service detail.  Due to personal reasons, I feel that my judgment may be compromised to a degree that renders me unsuitable for this position.  I leave you in the capable hands of Special Agent Vasquez, my invaluable right arm, who is well familiar with the requirements of safeguarding you and your husband._
> 
> _It has been my greatest honor to serve you, the finest Commander in Chief that this or any nation could hope for.  Congratulations on the passage of your gun control measures.  You have made this country safer, and I thank you for it._
> 
> _Very Truly Yours,_
> 
> _Agent Alexandra Danvers_

 

On Presidential letterhead, a few days later:

 

> _Agent Danvers,_
> 
> _While I would like to decline to accept your resignation, I will instead wish you the best and thank you for the exemplary service you have given in both my administration as well as the previous.  Please know that I will gladly supply you with any recommendations you may require._
> 
> _I suggest you have a word with former Director Henshaw.  He’s heading up a new project at my behest that you may be very well suited for, if you decide you wish to remain in the employ of the U.S. Government._
> 
> _Best regards,_
> 
> _President Astra Isaacs_

These two correspondences are the only ones on official record in the White House files.  Copies of them sit in a filing cabinet somewhere in the East Wing.  Two more copies sit in a desk drawer in Alex Danvers’ apartment.  She keeps them there, treasures of a time of turmoil.

Astra Isaacs also keeps copies of these two letters, discreetly folded and tucked into the back of a favorite novel that sits in the bottom drawer of her nightstand.  The novel is called “All the Light We Cannot See.”  Pressed between the covers of that book is another letter, this one on blank stationery, in Alex’s painfully neat hand, dated a few days before the resignation letter:

 

 

> _Astra,_
> 
> _If Rome taught me one thing, it taught me that I want more from this than I can have.  I made love to you that night, in that tiny hotel room, and I say that because I have no other words for what to call it.  It’s been strange to know you, at once so intimately and yet not at all.  But I know this: what I felt that night, the way you looked, the way you tasted, the sounds we made together… it left me no longer content to steal these silent, urgent fucks in locked offices and limos, dark corners and locker rooms.  I don’t want that anymore.  Not without the feel of your skin, not without you moaning my name.  Not without walking together through narrow, winding little streets and talking about our families, and feeding birds together.  Not without kissing you and tasting hazelnut gelato._
> 
> _My body sets itself on fire when I’m near you.  I want to know you, and know you deeply, not just the stitched up collection of private moments I witness as your protector (the protector that you don’t even need).  They reveal so much, you know.  I know things about you that most people never will.  But I want to know you like a lover knows you.  I want to know if you drool on your pillow and what you look like getting out of the shower and whether you’d steal food off my plate without asking.  I want to know if you talk in your sleep and what your native language sounds like.  I want something that I’m pretty sure I can’t have.  Because you’re married, and you’re the President, and I’m a Secret Service Agent whose objectivity and detachment have become deeply, deeply compromised._
> 
> _Please tell me if I’m wrong.  But if I’m not, I need to resign._
> 
> _–Alex._

These letters are roughly two years old.  Alex now works in an underground bunker full of tech she’d only dreamed of until she came to work here.  She reports to Hank Henshaw again, who, although officially retired, is working full-time here.  Hank, she’s learned, is also like Astra.  Not from the same planet, but similarly gifted.  Among his gifts is the ability to read minds.  Alex sincerely hopes she hasn’t had any terribly graphic thoughts about Astra in his presence.

This bunker houses an organization called the DEO, or the Department of Extra-normal Operations.  It monitors alien life on Earth and contains hostiles.  Alex gets to see things that, three years ago, would have defied her imagination.  It amazes her how little people actually know about what their government does to protect them.  But she likes Black Ops.  She really, really does.  She’s good at it.  And in some sense, she supposes, she is still protecting Astra from threats foreign and domestic.  Emphasis on foreign. 

When Astra visits, as she sometimes does, Alex is wrenched back into the past.  Back into all of the stolen moments.  All of the hot, hungry passion that passed between them.  Places on Alex’s skin, her neck, the small of her back, flare up; places where Astra touched her, that remember being touched.  “I miss you,” she confesses on one visit. 

Astra looks pained.  Alex can tell that she wants to touch her.  “I miss you too,” she admits.  And then she hands Alex a folded piece of stationery, something simple and elegant in pale blue, clouded with the scent of her perfume.  “You should probably wait until later to read this.”

Alex doesn’t wait.  Astra’s writing is so lousy, Alex she should have been a doctor. Then Alex remembers that Astra’s native alphabet was quite a bit different from English, and mentally cuts her some slack.

 

> _Alex (why did you never tell me you preferred Alex?)_
> 
> _You walked away from your job because I couldn’t give you what you wanted.  It doesn’t mean that I didn’t want it too.  
>  _
> 
> _Non and I are parting ways after I leave office.  He has always known there was someone else for me; whether by trauma or his genetics, he is simply not designed for the passion that he is well aware that I need, and though he does love me in his way, he will not keep me from you.  
>  _
> 
> _You have marked me, indelibly, in ways that hurt so beautifully that I need you still.  Even now, after all this time, it’s hard to find words for the ache in my chest when I see you.  It stays with me for days after, and I nurse it like a greedy child.  Alex, I still want you, and if you still want me, we are a hair’s breadth from having a chance at something.  I only ask a little more patience.  
>  _
> 
> _There is one more thing you need to know.  Though my party is urging me to seek a second term, I will not do so.  I have told no-one else this, except for Non. I won’t wait another four years to learn whether you and I have the potential for something real.  Geopolitics be damned.  I’ve done enough good in this chair and been maligned enough for it.  Cat Grant has been bucking for my job for years, let her have at it.  I want you, Alex, simply you, only you, if you’re willing to give me a little more time._
> 
> _Yours,_
> 
> _Astra_

  
  


*********

 

It is two years later.  Astra’s letter lives in a box that Alex doesn’t take out much anymore.  She doesn’t need to.

She wakes up beside Astra while it’s still just streaky grey pre-dawn light.  Astra’s always been an early riser and Alex has easily adapted to that.  It leaves them time for slow, luxurious lovemaking before they rise and begin their days together.  The kind of lovemaking where Astra’s lips will linger along Alex’s fingertips, the veins of her wrists, the crook of her elbow, building a deep, slow, thorough arousal before working her way down to kiss between her thighs.  Their bodies always did fit, but now they have time to enjoy it.

Apart from that, they live much like soldiers; they wake up early, go running along the Chesapeake Bay, compete to see who can do more push-ups (Alex always loses but she doesn’t complain), drink strong coffee and eat hearty breakfasts while arguing about politics and cussing each other out.  This sometimes ends in more sex, which nobody minds.  Their routine has a kind of warrior’s grace to it, something that neither of them has shared with anyone else.

Alex still works for the DEO.  Astra, like most retired Presidents, has started a foundation.  This one’s focus is environmental safety, spanning the range of efforts from beach cleaning and ocean blockades to applying political pressure on global governments, including America’s.  Astra now gets to be a pain in Cat Grant’s ass, which she relishes and takes no trouble to hide.  And there have been no mass shootings in America since her gun control bill passed, so she sleeps easy, for the most part.

The public was shocked at Astra’s decision to decline running again.  She cited concerns that she was too polarizing a figure, which had been somewhat true.  It took some time to leave office, to quietly untangle herself from Non, before she and Alex could begin exploring what they had.  But it happened, and it proves every day, more more, to have been worth the wait. 

The public was shocked again, for a minute, when it became public knowledge that she and the former head of her Secret Service had become lovers.  But people have short attention spans, and President Grant’s public antics were interesting enough that the public eventually forgot that they cared.

Astra and Alex still write to each other.  Notes, really.  Mostly, they say things like this:

 

> _Alex,_
> 
> _We are going to have to attend the opening of the Jimmy Carter Memorial Library on the 25th of this month, please put it in your calendar._
> 
> _Also, we are out of almond milk._
> 
> _Don’t be too long at the bunker tonight.  I bought something silky that I think you’re going to enjoy._
> 
> _Love you,_
> 
> _A_

 

And:

 

> _Astra,_
> 
> _Clearly the giant tub of hummus you insisted on buying is lined with lead, because the almond milk was behind it._
> 
> _I’m upstairs and naked.  Hurry up._

 


End file.
